BT 90 
.H6 
Copy 1 



BT 90 
.H6 
Copy 1 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 


Shelf ,HV . 



UNITED STATES OP AMERICA. 



I 



Ecclesiastical Tradition: 



ITS ORIGIN AND EARLY GROWTH; ITS PLACE IN THE 
CHURCHES; AND ITS VALUE. 






B. A. HINSDALE, A. M., 



PRESIDENT OF HIRAM COLLEGE 



AUTHOR OF " GENUINENESS AND AUTHENTICITY OF THE GOSPELS," AND " THE 
JEWISH-CHRISTIAN CHURCH. ' ' 



feu 



Vh ^ 



Standard Publishing Co., 180 Elm Street, Cincinnati. 
1879. 






Entered according to Act of Congress, in the Year 1879, by 

B. A. HINSDALE, 

In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, D C. 

J. B. SAVAGE, PRINTER AND BINDER, CLEVELAND, O. 






WAiS. 






t 

(0 



TABLE OF CONTENTS 



NTRODUCTION. 



PART FIRST. 



THE ORIGIN AND EARLY GROWTH OF TRADITION. 

I. — Tradition in the General Sense. 

II. — The Divine Tradition. 
III.— The Beginning of the Human Tradition. 
IY. — The Human Tradition in the Second Stage. 

V. — Some Principal Causes of the Human Tradition. 



PART SECOND. 



THE PLACE OF TRADITION IN THE CHURCHES. 

I. — Tradition in the Greek Church. 

II. — Tradition in the Roman Catholic Church. 

Note. — The Infallibility Dogma. 
III. — Tradition in the Anglican Church. 
IY. — Tradition in the Protestant Churches. 



PART THIRD. 



THE VALUE OF TRADITION. 

I. — Is Tradition a Source of Divine Knowledge? 

II. — Does the New Testament Rest on Tradition? 
III. — How the New Testament is Authenticated. 
IY.— The Interpretation of the New Testament. 

Y. — Summary and Conclusion. 



INTRODUCTION. 



The Author's attention was first drawn to the subject here dis- 
cussed by the following facts : 

1. The Roman Catholic Church, whose communicants are fully 
one-half of the Christian world, places Tradition side by side with 
the Bible as a religious authority. The Greek Church, ranking 
next, perhaps, in numbers, follows the Roman Catholic, though at 
a considerable distance. The Anglican Church follows hard upon 
the footsteps of the Greeks. Then, nearer or farther, in the rear 
of the Anglicans, are found most of the Protestant sects, treading 
in the traditionary path. In fact, of all the millions who profess 
the Christian name, the vast majority, directly or indirectly, con- 
sciously or unconsciously, pay a greater or less deference to Tradi- 
tion. 

2. With the Protestant Reformation, or, rather, with the causes 
which produced that Reformation, began a conflict between Tradi- 
tion and the Spirit of Inquiry that has not yet ended, and that is 
not likely soon to end. At the opening of this conflict, Tradition 
ruled not only the world of religion, but the world of thought. 
By degrees she has been driven out of the fields of science and 
philosophy; but in the field of religion, where she first set up her 
throne, Tradition still rules a vast empire. Religious questions of 
all sorts are now fiercely contested, and the contest does not 
promise soon to die away; but the grand underlying question is— 
What is the final Court of Appeal? What is the last authority 
in religion? 

3. For centuries the grand religious movement has been forward 
toward more light and freedom. However, there is all the time a 
small movement rearward, along the easy and fascinating tradi- 
tionary path — in the Anglican Church toward Rome, in the Prot- 
estant Churches either toward Rome or Canterbury. Dr. J. H. 



6 ECCLESIASTICAL TEADITION. 

Newman's Romeward movement, as traced in his "Apologia Pro 
Vita Sua," may fairly be said to have begun with Dr. Hawkins's 
sermon on "Tradition." A paragraph is quoted from that work: 
"There is one other principle which I gained from Dr. Haw- 
kins, more directly bearing upon Catholicism than any that I have 
mentioned ; and that is the doctrine of Tradition . When I was an 
undergraduate, I heard him preach in the University pulpit his 
celebrated sermon on the subject, and recollect how long it ap- 
peared to me, though he was at that time a very striking preacher; 
but, when I read it and studied it as his gift, it made a most serious 
impression upon me. He does not go one step, I think, beyond the 
high Anglican doctrine — nay, he does not reach it ; but he does his 
work thoroughly, and his view was original with him, and his 
subject was a novel one at the time. He lays down a proposition 
self-evident, as soon as stated, to those who have at all examined 
the structure of Scripture, viz • that the sacred text was never in- 
tended to teach doctrine, but only to prove it ; and that, if we would 
learn doctrine, we must have recourse to the formularies of the 
Church — for instance, to the Catechism, and to the Creeds. He con- 
siders that, after learning from them the doctrines of Christianity, 
the inquirer must verify them by Scripture. This view, most true 
in its outline, most fruitful in its consequences, opened upon me 
a large field of thought. Dr. Whately held it, too. One of its 
effects was to strike at the root of the principle on which the Bible 
Society was set up. I belonged to its Oxford Association; it became 
a matter of time when I should withdraw my name from its sub- 
scription list, though I did not do so at once. " * 

His attention arrested by these most important facts, the Author 
began to enquire, solely for the satisfaction of his own mind, What 
is Tradition? How did it arise? What are the sources of its power? 
How is it regarded by the churches? What is its power in them? 
and, What is its value? When, as a result of much reading and 
thought, his views attained to measurable fullness and consistency, 
he reduced them to writing. They are now given to the public in 
the faith that they have a certain value, both as an essay in eccle- 
siastical history, and as a contribution to current discussion. 

Let the reader take pains in the outset not to miss the Author's 
s tandpoint. He is not writing of traditions, but of Tradition. Be- 
lievers in Tradition believe it to be an instrument of doctrine, an 

-Fifth Edition, N. Y., pp. 60, 1. 



IKTKODUCTION". 7 

organ of teaching, a channel through which divine communications 
have descended from Christ and the Apostles to our own times. 
This is the sense of the word in the title to this essay. Some- 
times particular traditions will be mentioned, though more for 
illustration than for any other purpose. Tradition as now described 
is itself a tradition, and the most important of all. Tradition is a 
tradition through which other traditions flow. Its own basis and 
authority are traditionary. But it is the object of this book to ex- 
amine the channel of transmission, the conducting pipe through 
which traditions flow, and not the stream that the pipe carries. A 
discussion of Tradition can thus be brought within narrow limits ; 
but exhaustively to discuss ecclesiastical traditions would require a 
library. 

For the most part the inquiry will be historical rather than crit 
ical . Sometimes dogmas that come to us by way of Tradition will 
be subjected to criticism, but the great purpose of the Author will 
be to get at historical truth. It has been said that the historical 
method of investigation, so widely used in our time, is but a poor 
method for determining the truth or value of the particular subject 
investigated. This is true : it does not claim to do more than to lay 
bare the origin and progress of its subject. Still we are never in so 
good a position to pass critical judgment on a doctrine, party, or 
church, as when the historical method has laid it open to us in 
its length and breadth. However, the doctrine of Tradition will 
be examined fully enough to disclose its fatal weaknesses. 



PART I. 



THE ORIGIN AND EARLY GROWTH OE TRADITION. 



CHAPTER I. 



TRADITION IN THE GENERAL SENSE. 

We hear of the traditions of a family, a city, a political 
party, a commercial firm, a newspaper, a college, a coun- 
try, the Church, or of one of the historical divisions of 
the Church. It will be a great point gained, to find out 
what is the most general meaning of the word. 

The meanings of the Greek verb Tzapadidovat, and the 
Latin verb trader e, run parallel throughout. Their first 
and most general meaning is, to give or deliver over, to 
transmit, without any reference to what is delivered or 
transmitted; their second and more specific meaning, to 
deliver over or transmit some mental thing — a product of 
the mind. Uapddoaiq and traditio, the conjugate nouns, 
have three meanings, also parallel: (1) The act of giving 
up, handing down, transmitting; (2) The act of trans- 
mitting some product of the mind — as a legend, saying, 
or doctrine — without regard to the means of communica- 
tion, whether oral or written language; (3) The thing- 
delivered, as the product of the mind delivered or handed 
down. The English language has no verb that is the 
equivalent of Ttapadtdovai and tradere; but the noun tradi- 
tion has three meanings similar to itapadocnq and traditio. 
First of all, it means the act of delivery. Blackstone 
says, "A deed takes effect only from the tradition, or 



TEADITIOK IN" THE GENEKAL SENSE. 11 

delivery." The second and third definitions are quoted 
from Webster's Dictionary: 

" The unwritten or oral delivery of opinions, doctrines, practices, 
rites, and customs from father to son, or from ancestors to posterity; 
the transmission of any opinions or practices from forefathers to descend- 
ants, by oral communication, without written memorials." 

This is the act of transmitting some product of the 
mind in a particular manner. The third definition springs 
out of the second: 

"Hence, that which is transmitted orally from father to son, or from 
ancestors to posterity ; knowledge or belief transmitted without the aid 
of written memorials." 

It will be observed that the English word, in one respect, 
is narrower than the Greek or the Latin. It makes the 
instrument of transmission oral language; while the Greek 
and Latin words include both oral and written; in fact, 
the Latin rather prefers the written form. But it must 
not be supposed that the channel of transmission must 
forever remain oral speech, or that the tradition must 
always continue in an unwritten form; this element of the 
word relates rather to the original act of delivery, and to 
the early stages of the transmitting process, as will appear 
hereafter. 

It is in the last of the three senses above enumerated 
that the word tradition is commonly employed. It is 
in this sense that we speak of the traditions of Scotland 
or of New England; that the Count de Chambord, in refus- 
ing, some years ago, to make concessions to French liber- 
alism, was said to act in harmony with the traditions 
of the Bourbons; that*Mommsen says, "We have no 
information — not even a tradition — concerning the first 
migration of the Aryan race into Italy;" and that Grote 
speaks of ''the Avhole mass of traditions constituting the 
tale of Troy." 

There is no reason to suppose that a discussion of tradi- 



12 ECCLESIASTICAL TKADITION". 

tion, either word or thing, would ever have covered more 
ground than that now enclosed, had not the word been 
used for ecclesiastical purposes, and been modified by 
ecclesiastical usage. Historians would have narrated tra- 
ditions, and have sought to determine their value; tradi- 
tion, as a source of knowledge, would have received some 
attention at the hands of critics; but it was left to the 
Church to fill our book-shelves with volumes of history 
and criticism pertaining to the subject. We shall best 
understand the ecclesiastical meaning of the word tradi- 
tion, by searching out how the thing tradition originated, 
and what it is. 



CHAPTER II 



THE DIVINE TRADITION. 

It is difficult for men now living, especially for those 
who have never studied the G-ospel as a tradition, to pic- 
ture to their minds the Church of the first age. To do so, 
we must lay aside some of our most familiar and best es- 
tablished ideas of teaching Christianity; and then that 
age cannot be brought before our minds, as it was, without 
much study and a free use of the historical imagination. 
Let us try to reproduce one of its principal features. 

Christ delivered His message in oral, not in written 
words. In one instance only is He said to have written 
anything, and then " He stooped down, and with His fin- 
ger, wrote on the ground."* He belonged to the class of 
great oral teachers: men who leave no written memorials 
behind them, as Socrates and Confucius, and yet pro- 
foundly influence the world. Nor was He attended by a 
scribe who kept a record of His words and works. There 
is no reason to suppose that the four Gospels, or any one of 
them, is composed, in whole or in part, of materials that 
were reduced to writing in His life. His Apostles car- 
ried on the work of evangelization in the same way. Their 
commission was : "Preach the Gospel to every creature*" 
— ,; Teach them to observe all things whatsoever! have 

'■'■'• Johxi viii : 6. 



14 ECCLESIASTICAL TRADITION. 

commanded you."* Under this commission, "they went 
forth and preached everywhere, the Lord working with 
them, and confirming the word with signs following."! 
Aided by the Divine Spirit, they preached what they re- 
membered of the life and teaching of Christ, and added 
what they were inspired to say in further development 
of the Gospel. In course of time, wherever they went, 
bishops or pastors were called up to teach and rule the con- 
gregations of disciples that had been planted. Of course, 
these bishops employed the same oral method. Not only 
so, they were wholly dependent for the substance of their 
instruction upon what had been orally communicated to 
them. Again, the Apostles called to their aid helpers 
named evangelists, ministers like Luke, Timothy, and 
Titus, who preached and taught orally, and were depend- 
ent upon what they had heard for their knowledge of the 
■Gospel. These evangelists also ordained bishops, and 
raised up ministers like themselves, that the believers 
might be properly cared for and the world converted. Paul 
said to Timothy: "Keep that which is committed to thy 
trust;" I also, "Hold fast the form of sound words, which 
thou hast heard of me, in faith and love which is in Christ 
Jesus. That good thing which was committed unto thee 
keep by the Holy Ghost which dwelleth in us."§ And, 
"The things that thou hast heard of me among many wit- 
nesses, the same commit thou to faithful men, who shall be 
able to teach others also." || De Pressense has well said: 
" All the expressions employed in the New Testament to 
designate the proclamation of the new truth, set aside the 
notion of written documents." "The Gospel was at first 
nothing but the proclamation of the good news of pardon, 

*Mark xvi: 15; Math, xxviii: 20. § 2 Tim. i: 13, 14. 

+ Markxvi: 20. \\ Ibid, ii: 2. 

$ITim. vi: 20. 



THE DIVINE TRADITION". 15 

flying from mouth to mouth."* Christ Himself is called 
"the Word."f "It pleased God by the foolishness of 
preaching to save them that believe."]; The Gospel is 
"good tidings" "published" or "proclaimed;" a 
"word" "'spoken" and "heard." The "great salva- 
tion " began to be " spoken " by the Lord, and was con- 
firmed unto us by them that heard him."§ The human 
agent in carrying on the work is a herald, proclaimer, or 
preacher. || Paul says to the Corinthians: "I have re- 
ceived of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you;" 
"I delivered unto you first of all that which I also re- 
ceived."^ In the earliest period of its history, the Church 
of Corinth knew no more of Christ than had been deliv- 
ered unto it orally. In a certain sense, the saying of 
Bossuet, in his " Exposition," is true : " Christ Jesus 
laid the foundations of the Church upon the authority of 
preaching." In the beginning, then, the Gospel was a 
tradition in the fullest sense ; it was orally delivered and 
orally transmitted. To use a form of expression common 
with Catholic and Anglican writers, the deposit of the 
faith was confided to the Church ; the treasure that we 
now have in the New Testament, the early Christians had 
only in earthen vessels,** that is, living preachers. Propa- 
gated in this way, the Gospel had made considerable head- 
way before a single New Testament document was written. 
Christ spoke to men ; inspired Apostles preached what 
they had received, and committed the same to faithful 
men, evangelists and pastors, who were able to teach others 
also, instructing them to hand down the doctrines delivered 
in like manner 



*Jesus Christ: Times, Life, and Work, London, 1868, p. 133. 
t John i: 1. II Rom. x: 14. 

J I Cor. i:21. 1 1 Cor. xi: 23; xv: 3. 

§ Luke ii : 10 ; James i : 23 ; Heb. i : 2 ; ii : 3. ** II Cor. iv : 7. 



16 ECCLESIASTICAL TRADITION. 

The earliest canonical Christian writings were epistles, 
probably written by Paul. This class of writings began to 
appear about twenty years after the close of Christ's per- 
sonal ministry. No one of these writings contains a particle 
of evidence showing that the Gospel — the Evangelical 
Tradition — was in existence in a written form. It was 
quite natural that epistles should be written before gospels. 
The principal Gospel facts and teachings could very well 
be propagated during one generation by a ministry whose 
leading members had companied with the Lord, and who, 
moreover, were inspired ; but in the young churches, 
although their members had a firm grasp of the cardinal 
Gospel truths, questions of vital importance would con- 
stantly arise ; questions of spiritual life, of ecclesiastical 
discipline, of gifts and ordinances, that only the authority 
of an Apostle could settle. So much doctrine as sufficed 
to convert men and qualify them for Church membership, 
left a thousand things unsettled. Young Timothy was not 
the only disciple who needed to be instructed how to 
behave himself in the house of God. The relations of 
Christianity to Judaism and Pagan civilization had to be 
determined, and the law of love applied to the varied phases 
of human life. No doubt the Apostles did much of this 
work in their personal ministrations ; no doubt pastors and 
evangelists did a good deal more ; but the evangelical work 
of the Apostles prevented their becoming local ministers, 
and they were compelled to make up for their absence by 
..writing letters. In these considerations, in great part, the 
Epistles find their explanation. From first to last, it is 
taken for granted that the churches are in firm possession 
of the Evangelical Tradition ; so that the Epistles make 
no pretensions to being the fundamental books of our 
religion. Nor must it be forgotten that writing letters 
was a small part of the Apostles' labors, much smaller than 
preaching the Gospel. 



THE DIVIDE TRADITION. 17 

When and by whom the first essays were made to reduce 
to writing the Evangelical Tradition, it is impossible to 
tell. It is probable, if not certain, that brief, fragmentary 
narratives were written, and to some extent circulated, 
before the appearance of our canonical Gospels. Nor is 
there anything violent in supposing that such writings were 
extant in the early part of the Apostolic age. At all events, 
before Luke wrote the third Gospel " many had taken in 
hand to set forth in order a declaration of those things 
which were most surely believed" by the Christians, " even 
as they delivered them " " which from the beginning were 
eye witnesses and ministers of the word."* The things 
" delivered " and "believed" were the primitive tradition; 
and the "declarations''* mentioned by Luke, as well as his 
own narrative, were attempts to commit this tradition to 
writing. Luke continues : "It seemed good to me also, 
having had perfect understanding of all things from the 
very first, to write unto thee in order, most excellent 
Theophilus, that thou mightest know the certainty of those 
things, wherein thou hast been instructed "f — language 
which implies a recognition of the fate that must, in the 
long run, overtake every system of teaching that is 
dependent on oral transmission, as well as the imperfection 
of the " declarations " previously mentioned. In reducing 
the Gospel to writing, the Holy Spirit employed in part 
the pens of men who had no original or personal knowl- 
edge of the facts. Neither Mark nor Luke, so far as we 
know, had ever known the Saviour while he went in and out 
among men. According to ancient traditions preserved by 
Eusebius, Mark got his information from Peter;t while 
Luke "delivered in his own Gospel the certain account of 
those things which he himself had fully received from his 

* Luke i: 1, 2. % Eccls. Hist, ii: 15. 

+ Luke i : 3, 4. 



18 ECCLESIASTICAL TRADITION. 

intimacy with Paul, and also his intercourse with the other 
Apostles."* There can be no doubt that the primitive 
tradition was slowly assuming form, or rather forms, long 
before our Gospels were composed. The words and works 
that entered into one Apostle's recital were not in all cases 
those set forth by another ; something was left to indi- 
vidual tone of thought and mental habit. The Gospel 
according to Matthew is no doubt the Gospel as Matthew 
was accustomed to preach it ; Mark's, the Gospel as 
preached by Peter; and Luke's, the Evangelical Tradition 
as that writer had learned it from 'Paul and the other 
Apostles. John's, however, if we are to follow the Eusebian 
tradition,! is supplementary to the other three, and not 
the full story of Christ as John was accustomed to tell it. 
The Acts of the Apostles and the Apocalypse complete the 
canon of New Testament Scripture, which we may nat- 
urally divide into four divisions : A personal history of 
Christ ; a history of evangelization and organization under 
the direction of the Apostles ; a fuller unfolding and appli- 
cation of Christian doctrine ; a map of the future history 
of the Church. I propound no theory of inspiration, but 
the Lord was with the authors of these writings ; and the 
Holy Spirit, sent in His name, taught them all things, and 
brought all things to their remembrance, whatsoever He 
had said unto them. J 

We are now in a position to understand the word tra- 
dition as applied in the New Testament to the doctrine 
of Christ. It is found in three passages, two of which are 

* Eccls. Hist, iii: 24. 

•f- Ibid, iii: 24. Irenseus expressly says: "Mark, the disciple and 
interpreter of Peter, did also hand down to us in writing what had 
been preached by Peter. Luke also, the companion of Paul , recorded in 
a book the Gospel preached by him." — Against Heresies, iii, 1, 1. 

X John xiv: 26. 



THE DIVINE TRADITION". 19 

in the second letter to the Thessalonians. Paul says in 
one of them : "Now we command you, brethren, in the 
name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye withdraw your- 
selves from every brother that walketh disorderly, and not 
after the tradition which he received of us;"* and in 
the other : "Therefore, brethren, stand fast and hold the 
traditions which ye have been taught, whether by word, or 
our epistle. "f All Catholic writers on tradition, and 
some Anglican, lay great stress on these passages, as prov- 
ing that the tradition here referred to was something not 
found in the New Testament. What the passages mean, 
is clear enough in the light of the preceding discussion. 
The traditions referred to are the very substance of the 
Gospel, not something supplemental to it. They are what 
the Apostle had taught the Thessalonians of Christ; facts 
doctrines, precepts, and examples. More specifically, what 
these traditions were can be gathered from the Thess- 
alonian letters themselves. Paul says, for example: "But 
as touching brotherly love ye need not that I write unto 
.you, for ye yourselves are taught of God to love one 
another. "J That 13, they were already in possession of 
the Divine tradition on that subject. Again, when he savs, 
"Study to be quiet, and to do your own business, and to 
work with your own hands, as we commanded you,'*§ he 
is refreshing their minds in traditions that had been pre- 
viously communicated. What is more, these traditions 
had been delivered in written as well as in spoken lan- 
guage ; " whether by word or our epistle. " In the hands 
of Paul, Ttapddoatz means what it does in other Greek 
writings ; something delivered, whether in oral or in writ- 
ten language. The traditions in the hands of the Thessa- 
lonians were Paul's discourses and letters, no more and no 

* II Thes. iii: 6. X I Thess. iv: 9. 

jlbid. ii': 15. § Ibid.iv: 11, 12. 



20 ECCLESIASTICAL TRADITION. 

less. In the words of Jeremy Taylor, as quoted by Dr. 
Browne, the Bishop of Ely: is Ilapddoaic,, tradition, is 
the same with doy/ia, doctrine, and itapadiddvai is the same 
with diddaztv, say the grammarians ; and the Tzapzdode'caa 
7t{<TTiq in St. Jude, 'the faith once delivered,' is the same 

which St. Paul explicates by Saying xapadoaeiq ac £didd%dr)Te, 

'the traditions,' that is, the doctrines ye were taught."* 
Jeremy Taylor in illustration cites Irenaeus to the effect 
that Apostolical traditions were such as these : That Christ 
took the cup and said it was his blood ; that men should 
believe in one God, and in Christ, who was born of a virgin. 

The passages in the Second Thessalonians are the only 
ones where the Common Version renders napadoaiz as refer- 
ring to the Gospel, by tradition. But the word is found 
with that meaning in First Corinthians xi: 2. In the 
Common Version the passage reads: "Now I praise you, 
brethren, that ye remember me in all things, and keep the 
ordinances, as I delivered them to you. "Ordinances" 
should read "traditions" ; that is, to quote Dean Alford on 
the passage, "The Apostolic maxims of faith and prac- 
tice delivered either orally or in writing, "f The Cor- 
inthians had kept the things delivered as Paul had delivered 
them. 

Hapddotnc: is found thirteen times in the New Testament. 
Nine times]; it refers to the traditions of the Jews, which 
both the Saviour and the Apostles always denounced in no 
measured terms. The three times where it refers to the 
doctrine of Christ have been noted above. Colossians ii: 8, 
where we read, " Beware lest any man spoil you through 
philosophy and vain deceit, after the traditions of men, 
after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ," 



* Exposition of the Thirty-nine Articles, K Y., 1870, p. 135. 

+ New Testament for English Readers, in loc. 

% Matt, xv : 2, 3, 6 ; Mark vii: 3, 5, 8, 9, 13; Gal. i: 14. 



THE DIVINE TRADITION. 21 

the word may possibly refer to Jewish tradition, but seems 
to have a broader meaning. Ilapadtdovac is found one hun- 
dred and nineteen times, generally in the sense of giving 
or delivering over something. It is found in the well- 
known expression, " That form of doctrine which was 
delivered you,"* which should rather read, "Unto which 
ye were delivered." 

Catholic writers, unwilling to rest their doctrine of tra- 
dition on a basis of tradition, claim that they have full 
authority for it in Scripture. Nothing more need be said 
to show the utter baselessness of this claim. 

The writing and publication of the books composing the 
New Testament is an event of the first importance in the 
history of the Church. Their circulation greatly changed 
the method of propagating the Gospel, and of disciplining 
believers. And yet the immediate change was far less 
than anyone who has not closely studied the subject would 
suppose. The Epistles did not supersede, and did not aim 
to supersede, the oral Gospel. Their very nature made 
this impossible. On the other hand, they abound in 
exhortations to the disciples to continue in the things 
that had been delivered; they build on the foundation that 
the oral Gospel furnishes. No more do the Acts and the 
Revelation assume to set that Gospel aside. They, too, 
are supplemental to the Evangelical Tradition. Not until 
the publication of the canonical Gospels did anything 
authoritative appear that could take the place of the oral 
tradition. The circulation of these books is an event second 
in importance only to the primitive preaching. It is, in 
fact, a republication in a new form of the doctrine of 
Christ. To suppose, however, that the old form immedi- 
ately gave way to the new, that oral tradition at once 
yielded to written memorials, would be to commit a very 

* Rom. vi: 17. 



22 ECCLESIASTICAL TKADITION". 

great mistake. For a considerable period after the publi- 
cation of the New Testament writings, the oral Christianity 
flowed on in a stream almost as broad and deep as before. 
The causes that operated to produce this result must now 
be stated : 

1. A message that is intended to be universal, from the 
yery nature of the case, must be orally propagated. In no 
other way can large masses of men be reached. Men were 
to be saved in all generations by the " foolishness of preach- 
ing," as much after the writing of the Gospel as before. No 
subsequent event in the history of the Church, such as the 
invention of printing, limits the command to preach the 
Gospel. In fact, the Christianity of to-day, and of every 
age, is to a considerable extent an oral Christianity. In a 
sense that is often hidden from us, Christ Jesus did lay the 
foundation of the Church upon the authority of preaching. 
In our age, however, this fact determines the method of 
teaching, and has nothing to do with the source from 
which the teaching is drawn. The great efficiency of oral 
communication, as compared with written, undoubtedly 
tended to perpetuate the oral form of the Evangelical 
Tradition. 

2. The four Evangelists did not exhaust the stream of 
oral teaching. Many of the words and works of Christ 
were left unrecorded. John says expressly: " Many other 
signs truly did Jesus, in the presence of His disciples, 
which are not written in this book,"* his Gospel. The 
language of the last verse of John's Gospel, although 
hyperbolical, implies that the number of these things was 
very great. Nor did the other Evangelists write all that 
John left unrecorded. It seems to have been the purpose 
of the Divine Spirit to give us in the Gospels, not every 

*Johnxx:30. 



THE DIVINE TRADITION. 23 

word and deed of Christ, but a full view of His work. 
Certainly, what is recorded is all-sufficient for its purpose. 
John says: " These are written, that ye might believe that 
Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God ; and that, believing, 
ye might have life through His name."* No doubt both 
works and words failed to become incorporated in the 
several forms of the Evangelical Tradition ; no doubt, too, 
this narrowing process went on still farther when these 
forms were reduced to writing ; but there is no reason to 
suppose that the oral Gospel contained anything character- 
istic of the Lord, either word or deed, that is not in kind 
represented in the written Gospels. As already remarked, 
it is fair to assume that Matthew wrote the Gospel as he 
had been accustomed to preach it ; that Mark's Gospel is 
the measure of fact and doctrine delivered by Peter ; that 
Luke wrote the substance of what Paul was accustomed 
to preach ; though John seems to have written to supple- 
ment the Gospels of his co- Apostles. A considerable 
number of sayings attributed to Christ, not found in the 
Gospels, is found in the ancient literature of the Church, 
waifs on the stream of tradition. One such has received 
the sanction of Paul : " It is more blessed to give than to 
receive, "f Neither did the Acts and the Epistles exhaust 
the stream of Apostolic teaching. Luke gives but a 
meager history of the Apostolic age. It is evident that 
his reports of sermons are very much abridged, and many 
sermons he did not report at all. \ Indeed, it is clear that 
the greater part of the Apostles' teaching, in bulk at 
least, never became matter of record at all. Many inter- 
pretations of Scripture, many of the Lord's sayings, many 
exhortations, many decisions of casuistical and disciplin- 
ary questions, were never reduced to writing. In fact, 

*John xxi: 25. + Acts xx : 35. X See Acts ii : 40 : xx : 7. 



24 ECCLESIASTICAL TRADITION". 

one of Paul's Epistles was lost. * Whether the books that 
remain describe the full circle of Apostolic teaching, must 
be argued on general grounds. However that may be, the 
unrecorded words of Apostles, as well as their lost writings, 
formed a part of the broad stream of the Divine tradition. 
Whatever they said, wrote, or did, continued to circulate, 
like the words and works of Christ, in wider or narrower 
circles, 

3. The written Scriptures were for a long time scarce 
and hard to be obtained. Owing to this fact, as well as to 
the greater efficiency of the preached Gospel, Christianity 

*The proof of this statement is found in the First Epistle to the 
Corinthians. Dean Alford reasons thus on the point: "In ch. v: 9, he 
[Paul] says: 'I wrote to you in my letter, not to company with forni- 
cators. ' In my note on those words, I have endeavored to shew that 
the only meaning which in their context they will legitimately bear, is, 
that this command, not to associate with fornicators, was contained in 
a previous epistle to them, which has not been preserved to us. Those 
who maintain that the reference is to the present epistle, have never 
been able to produce a passage bearing the slightest resemblance to the 
command mentioned. The opinions of commentators on this point have 
been strangely warped by a notion conceived a priori, that it would be 
wrong to suppose any Apostolic epistle to have been lost. Those who 
regard not preconceived theories, but the facts and analogies of the 
case, will rather come to the conclusion that very many have been lost. 
The epistle to Philemon, for example, is the only one remaining to us 
of a class, which, if we take into account the affectionate disposition of 
St. Paul, and the frequency of intercourse between the metropolis and 
the provinces, must have been numerous during his captivity in Rome. 
We find him also declaring, 1 Cor. xvi. 3 (see note there), his intention 
of giving recommendatory letters, if necessary, to the bearers of the 
collection from Corinth to Jerusalem: from which proposal we may 
safely infer that on other occasions, he was in the habit of writing such 
epistles to individuals or to churches. To imagine that every writing 
of an inspired Apostle must necessarily have been preserved to us, is as 
absurd as it would be to imagine that all his sayings must necessarily 
have been recorded. The providence of God, which has preserved so 
many precious portions both of one and the other, has also allowed 
many, perhaps equally precious, of both, to pass into oblivion " New 
Testament for English Readers, Introduction to I Cor. iv:2, 3. 



THE DIVINE TRADITION". 25 

•continued to be propagated almost wholly by preaching. 
Large numbers of illiterate persons, especially in bar- 
barous regions, were brought into the fold of Christ. To 
a very great degree, disciples had not the sources of ori- 
ginal knowledge in their possession, or they were unable to 
use them ; from both which facts it followed that the oral 
■Gospel was the great means employed by the ministry in 
instructing and disciplining the churches. Hence, the Gos- 
pel continued for a considerable period to be — what it still 
is. and must always remain, to many — an oral testimony. 
From the time the New Scriptures were written, the oral 
Gospel began to lean upon the written, and to be steadied 
by it ; and books began to stand to the evangelist and the 
pastor in the relation at first held by the traditions of 
Christ and of the Apostles. 

4. Many of those disciples who had been converted by 
the oral Gospel, naturally preferred the spoken to the 
written word. " Those who had heard the living voice of 
the Apostles," says Canon Westcott, " were unlikely to 
appeal to their written words." "We have an instinct," 
he adds, " which makes us prefer any personal communi- 
cation to the more remote relationship of books." This 
instinct dwells in every man. It is illustrated in a saying 
attributed by Eusebius to Papias, who, according to his 
own testimony, lived in a time of written Gospels. " I 
made it a point," says he, "to enquire what were the 
declarations of the elders " [such as Andrew, Peter, and 
Philip]; " for I do not think that I derived so much bene- 
fit from books as from the living voice of those that are 
still surviving."* 

These causes kept the stream of oral testimony flowing 
after the stream of written testimony had appeared ; acting 
with other causes, to be mentioned by and by, they con- 

* Ecclesiastical Hist. III. 39. 



26 ECCLESIASTICAL TKADITIO^. 

tinned its flow until it was lost in the swelling stream of 
human tradition. Hence, the latter has its origin, not in 
the inventions of men two or three centuries after Christ 
and the Apostles, but rather in the corruption and undue 
prolongation of a stream originally pure, proceeding from 
inspiration itself. Here the question may occur, since 
neither the Gospels nor the Epistles say the stream of 
oral tradition is to cease, how do we know that such was 
the Divine intention ? This question is both a natural and 
an important one, but the writer thinks it better to defer 
the answer until we come to treat of the value of tradition. 
Before going on to the next period, it will be well to give 
the usual divisions of the Divine Tradition : 

Divided with reference to its sources, it consists of two 
parts: The Evangelical Tradition, the words and the works 
of Christ, Traditio Evangelica; the Apostolic Tradition, 
the words and the works of the Apostles, Traditio Apos- 
tolica. Divided with reference to its character, there are 
three parts : The Doctrinal Tradition, original facts and 
teachings, Traditio Doctrinalis; the Hermeneutical Tradi- 
tion, sayings of Christ and the Apostles designed to 
explain older Scriptures, Traditio Hermeneutica; the Ec- 
clesiastical Tradition, teachings concerning rites, ceremo- 
nies, and ecclesiastical questions, Traditio Ecclesiastica. 

The Apostolic Tradition, for the most part, was reduced 
to Avriting before the Evangelical. The written Gospel 
was the same in substance with the oral. In the original 
sense of the word, all Evangelical Christians believe in tra- 
dition. Those who accept the Protestant principle profess 
to believe in no tradition but that found in the Bible. 

Before the close of the second century, ecclesiastical 
usage began to limit napdSufftq to the unwritten teaching, 
rather, to the unwritten form of the teaching ; thus giving 
to the word a narrower meaning than it has in classical 



THE DIVIDE TRADITION. 2? 

Greek and in the New Testament. About the same time a 
distinct human tradition began to make its appearance in 
the Church. This appeared so gradually, it was so inter- 
woven with the oral Gospel, that no historian can lay his 
finger on a point, and say, here the Divine tradition ends 
and the human begins ; still, it is easy to discover how the 
human tradition was formed, and how it grew until the 
Soman Church put it on a level with the Bible. 



CHAPTER III. 



THE BEGINNING OF THE HUMAN TRADITION. 

Many innovations in the doctrine and polity of the 
Church are traceable to the second and third centuries. 
One of these is the limitation of the word tradition to the 
unwritten Gospel. As this unwritten Gospel was continu- 
ally becoming more and more corrupt, a word that had ori- 
ginally denoted both forms of Divine revelation, the spoken 
and the written, was finally appropriated to a human pro- 
duction. An examination of the Christian literature of 
the second century will show how this great change took 
place. 

The writings of the Apostolic Fathers (A. D. 70-120) 
throw but little light on our enquiry. They abound in 
evidence showing the currency of the Gospel and of the 
Evangelical narratives, though the latter are not described 
in words. The letters of Polycarp, Ignatius, and Bar- 
nabas, and the Letter to Diognetus, contain a number of 
unmistakable quotations from the Gospels. Ignatius asks, 
"What shall a man be profited, if he gain the whole world 
but lose his own soul?"* Polycarp says, "Be mindful 
of what the Lord said in His teaching: ' Judge not, that ye 
be not judged;' l forgive, and it shall be forgiven unto you;' 
' be merciful, that ye may obtain mercy ; ' ' with what 

*To the Romans, vi. 



BEGINNING OF THE HUMAN TRADITION. 29 

measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again ; ' and 
one more, ' Blessed are the poor, and those that are perse- 
cuted for righteousness' sake ; for theirs is the kingdom 
of God.'"* Barnabas exhorts, " Let us beware lest we 
be found [fulfilling that saying], as it is written, 'Many 
are called, but few are chosen.' "f This is the first example 
of a citation from a New Testament book in the Fathers, 
preceded by the formula, "it is written ; " its occurrence 
here proves that already the disciples have put the New 
Scriptures on the same level of authority with the old ones. 
These passages, as well as others that I need not quote, can 
be paralleled almost word for word in our canonical Gospels; 
other quotations, less exact in form, are still more numerous. 
Now, there can be no doubt that these exacter quotations 
were made from our Gospels ; the less exact may have been 
taken from the oral testimony, though this is far from cer- 
tain. They may have been quoted by memory from our 
Gospels. The following is an example of this second 
class : "The Spirit, as being from God, is not deceived. 
For it knows both whence it comes and whither it goes, 
and detects the secrets [of the heart]. "J The unwritten 
Gospel certainly existed in the age of the Apostolic Fathers. 
It could not so sOon have disappeared ; it is also found in 
the next age. These Epistles have no trace of a doctrine or 
a habit of tradition, in the later sense ; some of them, how- 
ever, reveal the existence of traditions. The episcopal sys- 
tem found in Ignatius, for example, is both a departure 
from the primitive constitution of the Church, and also the 
germ of the later hierarchy, in connection with which the 
human tradition was developed. The writings of the 
Apostolic Fathers abound, too, in quotations from the 
other books of the New Testament. 

* I Epistle to the Philippians, ii. 

+ Epistle, iv. 

\ Ignatius to Philadelphians, vii. 



30 ECCLESIASTICAL TRADITION. 

Justin, the philosopher and martyr, is the most conspic- 
uous figure in the next age. He sets forth no doctrine of 
tradition ; indeed, is silent as to the existence of any such 
thing in the Church. But, while his writings are like 
those of the Apostolic Fathers in this particular, they are 
unlike them in another : the written memorials of Christ 
are constantly referred to in words. He repeatedly men- 
tions and quotes the " Memoirs of the Apostles," which, he 
says, "are called Gospels." At the same time, the verbal 
inexactness of many of his quotations seems to show that 
he often quoted from memory. What is more, he quotes 
a few passages, referring them to Christ, that are not found 
in our Gospels at all ; though in these cases it should be 
remarked that he never says they are taken from the 
"Memoirs." Whence came these last quotations ? The 
stream of oral testimony was still flowing in Justin's age, 
and there is no room to doubt that this is their source. 
In the words of De Pressense, "Justin drank at the stream 
of oral tradition." If he had used the word tradition at 
all, he would have used it in Paul's sense. He says, for 
example : " The Apostles, in the Memoirs composed by 
them, which are called Gospels, have thus delivered unto 
us what was enjoined upon them ; that Jesus took bread, 
and when he had given thanks, said," etc.* Justin would 
have called this a tradition, as Irenaeus does at a later day. 
Justin writes in defense of the faith, as an apologist, and 
his writings but poorly reflect the interior state of the 
Church. We cannot learn, therefore, from his writings, 
what progress, if any, the human tradition was making. 

Passing to the close of the century, we discover at once 
that tradition has assumed a new prominence. The word 
no longer describes simply what had been delivered, with- 
out regard to the vehicle of communication, whether 

* The First Apology, lxvi. 



BEGINNING OF THE HUMAN TKADITION. 31 

spoken or written language ; nor does it mean the Holy 
Oracles as written, the New Testament; it means rather 
the doctrine of Christ as handed down in the Church, 
through the successions of bishops. A study of the 
great writers of this age will make this perfectly clear. 

Clement of Alexandria (160-220) represents the Alex- 
andrian view of tradition, which is less positive and realis- 
tic than that of the Latin writers. He siys : "As an 
honest man must not lie, so must we not depart from 
the rule of faith, which is handed down by the Church; 
it is necessary to follow those who already have the 
truth. As the companions of Ulysses, bewitched by Circe, 
behaved like beasts, so he who renounces tradition ceases 
to be a man of God."* He also speaks of "a rule of 
truth," called by him " the ecclesiastical rule," which, he 
says, is "the harmony of the law and the prophets with 
the covenant delivered by the Lord during his presence on 
earth. "f Clement nowhere says or implies that what he 
calls tradition contains doctrines not found in the Scrip- 
tures ; he values it as a support and interpreter of Scrip- 
ture. The "rule" of which he speaks was probably a 
compendious theological system, or summary of the faith. 

Tertullian frequently refers to tradition, and bases 
upon it controversial arguments. In his work entitled 
*' Against Marcion," he confutes the proposition affirmed 
by that heretic, that Paul had preached a new God. 
After first quoting from the Scriptures, he appeals to 
tradition to prove that the Christian doctrine of God had 
not suffered corruption. " No other teaching will have 
the right of being received as Apostolic than that which 
is at the present day proclaimed in the churches of 
Apostolic foundation." He then argues that Marcion's 
doctrine is opposed to this teaching. " You will, however, 

* Miscellany, vii: 15. + Ibid, vi: 15. 



32 ECCLESIASTICAL TKADITION. 

find no church of Apostolic origin but such as reposes its 

Christian faith in the Creator "* ; and he affirms that " the- 

proof of his argument is sufficiently established " by the 

fact that " there was, from Christ down to Marcion's 

time, no other God in the rule of sacred truth than the 

Creator." Another example of the same kind of reasoning 

is given from the same treatise : " I am accustomed in my 

prescription against all heresies, to fix my compendious 

criterion [of truth] in the testimony of time; claiming 

priority therein as our rule, and alleging lateness to be the 

characteristic of every heresy, "f He then quotes Colos- 

sians i: 5, 6, in confirmation of this rule : " For the hope 

which is laid up for you in Heaven, whereof ye heard before 

in the word of the truth of the Gospel ; which is come 

unto you, as it is unto all the world." He calls the Gospel of 

the Apostles "the tradition of the Gospel," which shows 

that he had not lost sight of the sense in which Paul used 

the word. Nor is there anything in this passage which of 

itself shows that Tertullian understood the word in any 

other sense. That he did understand and use it in the 

ecclesiastical sense, which was now becoming current, is 

proved by other passages in his writings. One of these is 

the following : 

" Our appeal, therefore, must not be made to the Scriptures; nor 
must controversy be admitted on points in which victory will either be 
impossible, or uncertain, or not certain enough. But even if a discussion 
from the Scriptures should not turn out in such a way as to place both 
sides on a par, [yet] the natural order of things would require that this 
point should be first proposed, which is now the only one which we 
must discuss: ' With whom lies that very faith to which the Scriptures 
belong ? From what [original Giver], and through whom, and when, and 
to whom, has been handed down that rule by which men become Chris- 
tians V For wherever it shall be manifest that the true Christian rule 
and faith shall be, there will likewise be the true Scriptures and exposi- 
tions thereof, and [indeed] all the Christian traditions, "t 

* Against Marcion, i: 21. X Prescription Against Heretics, xix. 
+ Ibid, v: 19. 



BEGINNING OF THE HUMAN TRADITION. 33 

Still another work of this voluminous writer contains 
this passage : " Of these and other usages, if you ask for 
the written authority of the Scriptures, none will be found. 
They spring from tradition, are confirmed by custom, and 
are ratified by belief."* 

Nothing in Tertullian supports the propositions of the 
Catholics, that Scripture alone is not sufficient for salva- 
tion, and that there is Divine knowledge not found in 
Scripture. It will, therefore, be asked, if Tertullian did 
not find in tradition doctrine which is not contained in 
the Bible, why did he appeal to it in his controversies ? 
The question is a most important one, and demands a sat- 
isfactory answer. Indeed, it is the pivot on which the 
whole argument turns. This answer is withheld until 
we have before us the testimony of Irenaeus. It should 
be remembered here, however, that Tertullian does base 
usages, that is rites, on the authority of tradition, con- 
fessing that he can find no authority for them in Scrip- 
ture ; but his writings contain no intimation that he based 
doctrines on such authority. In the words of an Anglican 
writer: " He establishes the lawfulness of certain practices 
from Apostolic tradition, as we [Anglicans] do; but these 
practices or rites were not part of the revelation made by 
God."f But the practice of authenticating rites by the 
authority of tradition naturally led to authenticating doc- 
trines in the same manner. But while Tertullian holds 
that Scripture can settle nothing for the heretics, since 
they have not the key to its meaning, he holds to its suf- 
ficiency and finality for believers. "I revere," he says, 
"the fullness of His Scripture, in which He manifests to 
me both the Creator and the creation.'^ 



* Concerning the Soldier'' s Crown, iv. 

+ Palmer: Treatise of the Church of Christ, London, 1839, ii: 31. 

X Against Hermogenes, xxii. 



34 ECCLESIASTICAL TRADITION". 

It will be seen that Tertullian speaks of a compendious 
criterion and of a rule of faith. Chapter xiii of the 
Prescription Against Heretics shows that this criterion or 
rule was that ancient summary of the faith which came in 
time to be called the creed. It is : 

" That which prescribes the belief that there is only one God, and 
that He is none other than the Creator of the world, who produced all 
things out of nothing through His own Word, first of all sent forth ; that 
this "Word is called His Son, [and] under the name of God, was seen ' in 
divers manners' by the Patriarchs, heard at all times in the Prophets, at 
last brought down by the Spirit and Power of the Father into the Vir- 
gin Mary, was made flesh in her womb, and, being born of her, went forth 
as Jesus Christ ; thenceforth He preached the new law and the new prom- 
ise of the Kingdom of Heaven, worked miracles ; having been crucified 
He rose again the third day ; [then] having ascended into the Heavens, 
He sat at the right hand of the Father ; sent instead of Himself the power 
of the Holy Ghost to lead such as believe ; will come with glory to take 
the saints to the enjoyment of everlasting life and of the heavenly prom- 
ises, and to condemn the wicked to everlasting fire, after the resurrection 
of both these classes shall have happened, together with the restoration 
of their flesh." 

We come now to the writer to whom we are indebted, 
more than to any other, for our knowledge of tradition at 
the close of the second century ; the writer, also, who, more 
than any other of the early Fathers, built up the very, 
thing of which he gives us such abundant information. 

Irenseus often uses the word tradition in its original 
sense, something delivered and transmitted. For example : 
"The Church, though dispersed throughout the whole 
world, even to the ends of the earth, has received from the 
Apostles and their disciples this faith ;" following with a 
summary of doctrine similar to that quoted above from 
Tertullian. Again : "For, although the languages of the 
world are dissimilar, yet the import of the tradition is one 
and the same ;"* in proof of which, he states that the 
Churches of Germany, Spain, Gaul, the East, West, and 

* Against Heresies, I. x: 2. 



BEGIUXLN'G OF THE HUMAN TKADITIOK. 35 

South agree in what they believe and hand down. These 
passages simply assert a unity of faith in the Church, and 
throw no light upon tradition in the ecclesiastical sense. 
They are consistent with the idea that the Word of God is 
found in Scripture alone. Other passages, however, will 
not bear this construction ; for Irenaeus, like Tertullian, 
lays great stress upon tradition as distinguished from 
Scripture. This is in his controversies with heretics. 
. Before beginning his argument on tradition, as though 
throwing an anchor to windward, lest he and his readers 
might drift on a dangerous shore, he says: "We have 
learned from none others the plan of our salvation, than 
from those through whom the Gospel has come down to 
us, which they did at one time proclaim in public, and, at 
a later period, by the will of God, handed down to us in 
the Scriptures, to be the ground and pillar of our faith. 7 '* 
From this passage, no one would infer that Erenaeus under- 
stood that there were still unwritten doctrines of Divine 
authority. "The Gospel," not a part of it, "is handed 
down to us in the Scriptures," not in a floating tradition, 
"to be the pillar and ground of our faith.*' He then 
names the Gospels, and appeals to them as teaching that 
doctrine of God which he holds. Next, he describes the 
manner in which the heretics carry on controversy : ' 'When, 
however, they are confuted from the Scriptures, they turn 
round and accuse these same Scriptures, as if they were not 
correct, nor of authority, and [assert] that they are ambig- 
uous, and that the truth cannot be extracted from them by 
those who are ignorant of tradition. For [they allege] that 
the truth was not delivered by means of written docu- 
ments, but viva voce"\ He now charges them with dis- 
honesty in making this appeal : "When we refer them to 

^Against Heresies, III. i: 1. 
Ubid. III. ii: 1. 



36 ECCLESIASTICAL TRADITION. 

that tradition which originates from the Apostles, [and] 
which is preserved by means of the successions of pres- 
byters in the churches, they object to tradition, saying 
that they themselves are wiser, not merely than the pres- 
byters, but even than the Apostles, because they have dis- 
covered the unadulterated truth. * * It comes to this, 
therefore, that these men do now consent neither to Scrip- 
ture nor to tradition."* He closes this chapter with calling 
the heretics " slippery serpents " seeking "to escape at all 
points;" " wherefore," he says, "they must be opposed 
at all points, if, perchance, by cutting off their retreat, we 
may succeed in turning them back to the truth, "j These 
quotations furnish the key to Irenaeus's use of tradition, 
in his controversies with the heretics. 

He now enters on his argument drawn from tradition to 
confute the heretics, and confirm the orthodox faith. "It 
is within the power of all, therefore, in every church, who 
may wish to see the truth, to contemplate clearly the tra- 
dition of the Apostles, manifested throughout the whole 
world." He points to '-those who were by the Apos'les 
instituted bishops in the churches," and to "the successions 
of these men to our own times," as the channel through 
which the Apostolic tradition had been delivered ; affirm- 
ing that these bishops "neither taught nor knew of anything 
like what these [heretics] rave about." J "Since, how- 
ever, it would be very tedious," he says, "to reckon up the 
successions of all the churches," he appeals to "that tradi- 
tion derived from the Apostles, of the very great, the very 
ancient, and universally known Church, founded and 
organized at Eome by the two most glorious Apostles, 
Peter and Paul ; " adding the words so much relied on by 
every champion of the Roman See : "For it is a matter of 

* Against Heresies, III. ii: 2. %Ibid, III. iii: 1. 

Hbid. III. ii: 3. 



BEGINNING OF THE HUMAN TRADITION. 37 

necessity that every church should agree with this Church, 
on account of its pre-eminent authority; that is, the faith- 
ful everywhere, inasmuch as the Apostolical tradition has 
been preserved continuously by those [faithful men], who 
exist everywhere."* Next Irenseus traces the succession 
of the Roman bishops from Peter to Eleutherius, the 
bishop when the work "Against Heresies*' was written, 
saying : "In this order, and by this succession, the eccle- 
siastical traditions from the Apostles and the preaching 
of the truth have come down to us." He also instances 
other churches, as Smyrna and Ephesus, as "true wit- 
nesses of the traditions of the Apostles. " 

It is evident that, in these last passages, Irenaeus does 
not use the word tradition to denote merely what had been 
delivered without regard to form ; he means by it a body 
of teaching received and handed down in the churches, 
independent of the New Testament. The word is used 
in a strictly ecclesiastical sense. But he does not mean 
tradition in the Roman sense : Divine knowledge supple- 
mental to what is found in the Bible. Of a tradition of 
this sort, the writings of Irenaeus afford no trace whatever. 
In the following passage, as well as in one of those quoted 
above, he expressly holds to the sufficiency of Scripture: 
"The Scriptures are indeed perfect, since they were spoken 
by the word of God and His Spirit."' f He appeals to tra- 
dition as an independent, though not supplemental, source 
of Christian testimony. With the exception of the cor- 
ruptions that time has wrought, this tradition is the oral 
Gospel of the first, second, and third ages. How import- 
ant is the part played by this Gospel, is shown by the fol- 
lowing extract: " Those who, in the absence of written 
documents, have believed this faith, are barbarians so far 
as regards our language; but as regards doctrine, manner, 

* Against Heresies, III. iii : 2. +Ib\d. II, xxviii. 3. 



38 ECCLESIASTICAL TRADITION". 

and tenor of life, they are, because of faith, very wise in- 
deed; and they do please God, ordering their conversation 
in all righteousness, chastity, and wisdom."* The stream 
of oral testimony, though more or less corrupted, was still 
flowing. 

It cannot he too strongly insisted on that the tradition 
referred to by Clement, Tertullian, and Irenaeus is not the 
tradition of the Roman Catholic Church. It is not 
Divine knowledge over and above what is written in the 
G-ospels and Epistles ; it is, according to these writers, the 
same knowledge in another form. That a stream of teach- 
ing was still flowing which claimed to be the same stream 
that we find in the Apostolic age, no one can doubt; that 
this stream had become more or less impure, can easily be 
proved, though it is nowhere admitted by the Church 
writers of the period that such is the case. But it will be 
asked, if these writers know nothing of a tradition that is 
the vehicle of knowledge not found in the written word 
of God, why do they appeal to tradition at all ? The an- 
swer, already once postponed, lies near at hand. 

In the first place, there is no reason to doubt that, in the 
second half of the second century, the knowledge and dis- 
cipline of the Church rested on the oral as well as on the 
written testimony. Why this was so, was shown in the last 
chapter. Henoe it follows that, in the age of Irenaeus, an 
argument based on tradition would, to many persons, be 
stronger and more vivid than an argument based on Scrip- 
ture. But, secondly and principally, these great writers 
were engaged in a fierce controversy with heretics who held 
the Scriptures in but slight esteem. The heretics denied 
the canonicity of some books altogether, and were always 
ready with their speculative processes to refine away un- 
welcome arguments drawn from those books which they 

* Against Heresies, II, iv : 2. 



BEGINNING OF THE HUMAN TRADITION. 39 

professed to acknowledge. When pressed with arguments 
from Scripture, the heretics did what Catholic theologians 
since the Eeformation do: they said Christianity was orig- 
inally an oral word ; that the New Testament was defec- 
tive and misleading, and that it must be supplemented by 
tradition. Hence, Tertullian and Irenaeus appealed to 
tradition, not for proofs that could not be found in the 
Bible, but to show what had been continuously believed 
and taught on the disputed points in the oldest churches. 
Following Tertullian' s criterion of Time, they seek to show 
that the Catholic doctrines are old, the heretical doctrines 
new. "Prior to Valentinus," says Irenaeus, "those who 
follow Valentinus had no existence ; nor did those from 
Marcion exist before Marcion ; nor, in short, had any of 
those malignant-minded people, whom I have above enum- 
erated, any being previous to the initiators and inventors 
of their perversity.''* The argument against the heretics- 
is equivalent to this: We waive for the time being the 
authority of books, and make an appeal to what has been 
handed down in all the churches from a period prior to 
the time when the books were written. In fairness, noth- 
ing more can be made out of these appeals than can be 
made out of similar appeals to antiquity now, by those who 
do not accept tradition, to settle controverted questions of 
theology and ecclesiastical polity. In our own time, con- 
troversialists who cannot settle their disputes within the 
Bible, go to the history of the ancient Church to brace up 
their reasonings. The Trinity, the Divinity of Christ, in- 
fant baptism, episcopacy, and a hundred other mooted 
questions, are argued both on Biblical and on historical 
grounds. Such a method does not differ in principle from 
the attempt to settle the meaning of an historical docu- 
ment, when its meaning may be in dispute, by parole tes- 

*Against Heresies, II, iv: 3. 



40 ECCLESIASTICAL TRADITION. 

timony. Already in the time of Irenaeus the Church had 
an antiquity; he calls Papias "the ancient man;" and to 
this antiquity the fathers appealed to prove their positions. 
In this age the conception of a complete outward unity of 
the Church was taking possession of men's imaginations, a 
conception that grew, pari passu, with tradition and hier- 
archical authority ; and this fact made it the more easy 
and natural for the orthodox writers to appeal to time as 
a test of truth. 

It must be borne in mind that this appeal to tradition 
is very different from the one made by modern Catholics. 
The latter go to tradition because Scripture alone is de- 
fective, ambiguous, misleading ; the former went to it 
saying : We can confirm and prove the teaching of Scrip- 
ture by tradition. Hence this early appeal was rather a 
compliment to than a disparagement of Scripture. 

In confirmation of this view, it may be said that the 
proofs urged against the heretical doctrines by Tertullian 
and Irenaeus, reveal nothing peculiar to tradition. In 
these controversies they are maintaining fundamental 
Christian views. Tradition furnished them no arguments 
that were not also contained in the Scripture. Kor do 
they rest the argument against heretics on tradition alone. 
That they may "effectually oppose" the slippery serpents 
at all points, " cut off their retreat," and " turn them back 
to the truth," they appeal to both sources of evidence. 
Irenaeus says : " Since, therefore, the tradition from the 
Apostles does thus exist in the Church, and is permanent 
among us, let us revert to the Scriptural proof furnished 
by those Apostles who did also write the Gospel, in which 
they recorded the doctrine regarding God, pointing out 
that our Lord Jesus Christ is the Truth, and that no lie is 
in Him."* He devotes much more space to the Scriptural 

* Against Heresies, III. v: t. 



BEGINNING OF THE HUMAN TRADITION. 41 

argument than to the argument based on tradition ; as 
does Tertullian also. 

That an appeal to the early history of the Church was 
natural, will hardly be disputed by those who make similar 
appeals now. Within certain limits, it was perfectly legit- 
imate. Had it been made as a lawyer appeals to parole 
testimony, to settle disputed questions, no one could fairly 
deny its propriety or hold that it was abused. To settle 
cardinal doctrines and rites, the historical argument was 
fairly entitled to great weight ; but it was not entitled to 
much consideration when the nicer shades of teaching were 
in question. Tradition may faithfully preserve the salient 
features of a body of teaching, but it is idle to base on it 
nice criticisms. At the same time, the argumentum ad 
verecundiam is attended by many dangers, especially in 
religion, more especially still in ages when faith is a quicker 
principle than intelligence. There is a constant tendency 
to forget the real nature of such proof,' and to regard the 
past with superstitious reverence. While, therefore, the 
writings of Irenseus do not contain the Roman Catholic 
doctrine of tradition, they do reveal the habit of mind out 
of which that doctrine grew. "It is interesting," says 
Hagenbach, "to observe that, e. g., Irenseusdoes not as yet 
know any human tradition {Traditio Humana) within the 
Church which could in any way contradict the Apostolic 
tradition (Traditio Apostolica); such a tradition is known 
by Irenaeus only among the heretics."* With all their 
affected reverence for antiquity, the Catholic doctors do 
not follow the example of the ancient Fathers ; in appeal- 
ing from the Scriptures to tradition, and especially in af- 
firming that the Inspired Books are defective and .obscure, 
they borrow from the heretics whom Tertullian and Ire- 

*Hist. of Doctrines, N. Y. I. 97. 



42 ECCLESIASTICAL TRADITION". 

naeus wrote to confute. But Irenaeus is preparing the way 
for a human tradition, nevertheless ; it is hardly too much 
to say that one is springing up under his own hand. His 
successors are likely to carry his mode of reasoning too far; 
nay, he carries it too far himself. In searching for the cri- 
terion of truth, he says: " Suppose there arise a dispute 
relative to some important question among us, should we 
not have recourse to the most ancient churches with which 
the Apostles held constant intercourse, and learn from 
them what is certain and clear in regard to the present 
question? For how should it be if the Apostles themselves 
had not left us writings? Would it not be necessary [in 
that case], to follow the course of the tradition which they 
handed down to those to whom they did commit the 
churches ? "* Here Irenaeus seems to reason as though the 
faith could have been preserved without Scripture, and as 
though the writing of the New Testament made no differ- 
ence in the method of settling disputed questions. He 
was a man of ardent faith and piety, though not of very 
robust intellect ; had he been, he could hardly have failed 
to see that his method was liable to great abuses ; that it 
would strengthen tradition and weaken Scripture ; that, 
if the method of tradition were to be followed, antiquity 
would more and more overshadow the Church, shutting 
out all rays of light, save what came in through the pa- 
tristic windows. 

While the writings of Irenaeus do not contain the Roman 
doctrine of tradition, they reveal a considerable corruption 
of the Christian faith. This appears most strikingly in his 
view of the Church, his ecclesiology. He exaggerates the 
importance of an external and visible unity in the Church. 
The phrase "Church Catholic" had become current, but 

*Against Heresies, III. iv: 1. 



BEGINNING OF THE HUMAN TRADITION. 43 

Irenasus went farther in the same direction. His eccle- 
siology is thus summarized by Schenkel : 

" And the more the Gnostics concealed their Christianity from the 
uninitiated, and appealed to private Apostolical traditions, the more the 
orthodox Fathers and teachers of the churches felt themselves called 
upon to refer to the unity of the churches as a whole, which revealed 
itself in outward signs. One extreme almost necessitates the other. The 
Paganistic errors of the Gnostics provoked the orthodox teachers to new 
Judaistic extremes. Because the Apostles had counted as a member 
every one of whose faith they had credible proof, it became the practice 
to regard as having true faith only those who could first show their con- 
nection with the visible communion. It is Ireneeus whose acuteness and 
energy first gives currency to this false principle. The maxim, Ubi 
ecclesia, ibi et Spiritus Dei, shows his position, and it is not outweighed 
by the converse, Ubi Spiritus Dei, illic ecclesia et omnis gratia. The 
Spirit is with him directly joined to the outward form of Church com- 
munion. He takes the Church as a pre-existent establishment, designed 
especially to propagate and maintain, by tradition, the pure doctrine. 
The Church as Christ's body is, with him, a system externally organized, 
whose essential organs are the bishops as successors of the Apostles. To 
renounce the episcopate is to apostatize from the truth. The possession 
of the truth is inseparable from the episcopal office. Peter and Paul are 
reckoned the founders of the Church in Rome; all believers belong to 
this Church, and only by the successio and ordinatio of the bishops is 
vivificatrix fides, the true faith, transmitted and preserved in the Church. 
Even Ireneeus has but a wavering confidence in the Spirit of Truth, who 
dwells where he will. He thought there was no remaining barrier to 
the formidable spread of error in his time, but tradition, held in fixed 
limits : still, he would not leave even that tradition to the free impulse 
of the spiritual motion, but subject it to established official supervision. 
We must, hence, beware of heresies, not merely because they are false, 
but also because they are contrary to the Church tradition, to episcopal 
authority. Separation from the traditional Church is equivalent to 
rising up against the truth. [Adv. Haer, iv. xxxiii, 7)"* 

Irenams's error culminates in the position that he 
assigns to the Church of Eome. "It is a matter of neces- 
sity," he says, "that every church should agree with this 
Church, on account of its pre-eminent authority." He 
does not base this claim on a pretended primacy of Peter, 
but on the fact that this Church lias preserved the Apos- 

*Herzog J s Real Encyclopaedia, Phila. 1860, art. "Church." 



44 ECCLESIASTICAL TRADITION". 

tolic tradition unchanged. But a claim of " pre-eminent 
authority," urged by. a man of Irenaeus's prominence and 
weight, on whatever grounds, could not fail materially to 
strengthen the Roman claim, and to give support to reasons 
that never entered his mind. 

The discussion of the value of tradition is reserved for 
the third Part of this work. But it should here be pointed 
out that, as early as the days of Tertullian and Irenaeus, 
it was in dispute what tradition was, the heretics claim- 
ing that it was one thing, and the orthodox another. In 
fact, there were practically two traditions. This divided 
opinion sprang out of the very nature of tradition. Men 
who could not agree upon the meaning and authority of 
written documents, were not likely to agree upon what 
had never been written at all. This difficulty has con- 
fronted each succeeding generation of men who have sought 
to find Christianity in the traditions of the Qhurch. 
What had been handed down orally, was in dispute when 
Tertullian and Irenaeus wrote; so the record that they 
made of it itself became a matter of dispute. As the fac- 
tions of the second century could not agree upon what they 
had received by tradition from the Apostles ; so the fac- 
tions of later times cannot agree upon what they have 
received from the Fathers. Herein is revealed the fatal 
weakness of this method of determining truth. Grant 
that Irenaeus found a living Apostolic tradition which he 
reduced to writing, how can we be sure that his record, 
made by an uninspired man, was a faithful one ? And 
since it was not protected by the veneration and affec- 
tion that served to protect the Bible, how can we be sure 
that the record has not been corrupted ? It cannot be an 
edifying spectacle for Anglicans to see Irenaeus putting 
down one generation of heretics by arguing that they have 
misunderstood antiquity, and then to see later writers ac- 



BEGINNING OF THE HUMAN TRADITION. 45 

counted orthodox putting dovvm later heretics by arguing 
that they have misunderstood Irenseus. For the Anglican 
or the Old Catholic to untie this knot, is impossible. 
The Romanist cuts it square across by asserting the inspi- 
ration of the Church, or the infallibility of the Pope. 

The facts presented in this chapter show conclusively 
that a distinctly human tradition had appeared in the 
Church before the close of the second century. Closely 
analyzed, the new tradition will be found to consist of two 
elements : 

1. Certain innovations have been made in the faith and 
polity of the Church; that is, certain doctrines and rites 
never delivered by the Apostles are regarded as parts of the 
Divine tradition. As examples, the episcopate, as ex- 
pounded by Ignatius and Irenaeus, and the "priority" of 
Rome may be mentioned. 

2. Out of the practice of appealing to tradition, the ori- 
gin of which has been traced, has grown a doctrine of tra- 
dition. It is held that oral transmission is a permanent 
source of Divine knowledge. I call this an innovation or 
human invention. True, the oral deliverances of Christ 
and of the Apostles were authoritative, as explained in the 
last chapter; but further on I shall attempt to prove, w r hat 
here I assume, that, according to the Divine intention, the 
written word was to be the sole standard of truth. Ac- 
cordingly, the assumption that oral communication is a 
fixed channel of teaching, is a human invention, and one 
that becomes traditional. Thus the doctrine of tradition 
is one of the traditions, and the most powerful of them 
all; Ttapddoaiq has undergone, or is undergoing, a change of 
meaning. Both in classic and in New Testament Greek, it 
is either an oral or a written communication; but now it is 
being limited to an exclusively oral tradition, handed down 
in the successions of the bishops. Tradition is one thing,. 



46 ECCLESIASTICAL TRADITION". 

Scripture another; perhaps not so much in substance as 
in form and in name. Irenaeus's use of the word is nar- 
rower than Paul's. To change the expression, the tradi- 
tionary habit of mind, the habit of appealing to antiquity 
as a standard of truth, has taken firm hold of the Church 
teachers; not, however, the antiquity shown in the New 
Testament, but the one revealed in the continuous life of 
the Church. 

Before the close of the second century, then, the Church 
was weaving that net of tradition in which the souls of men 
became ensnared, and remained ensnared until the Prot- 
estant Eeformation tore it asunder ; and in this net the 
strongest thread is the belief that tradition is authorita- 
tive. It is not a little remarkable that the ministers of a 
Church whose Author and Head denounced one human tra- 
dition as "making void the law of Cod," should almost 
immediately begin the elaboration of another one ; but 
such is the fact. "We are now to follow the history of their 
work into a later period. 



CHAPTER IV. 



THE HUMAN TKADITION IN THE SECOND 
STAGE. 

From Irenseus to Augustine, and onward to Gregory the 
Great, tradition continued to unfold. We cannot follow 
the evolution step by step, but some general facts must be 
explicitly stated. 

Doctrines and rites unknown to the Apostles, but in- 
vented by men, in continually increasing numbers, were 
receiving recognition in the Church. Tradition was more 
and more relied upon as an instrument of teaching and a 
source of authority; more and more it became a doctrine. 
Greeks and Anglicans hold that there was a long Christian 
antiquity, marked by doctrinal purity and ecclesiastical 
unity. This period they bring to an end at the time to 
which this chapter reaches; and what they call the "Ko- 
man errors," they say, were subsequently developed. This 
antiquity, as we shall see later, they make the mirror of 
Christianity. The claim is an idle one. It is absurd 
to hold that innovations came into the Church at once, at 
or about the year 600, like a young flood ; that the Eoman 
division suddenly lost her purity; or that the Scriptures 
were pushed aside by a stroke to make room for human 
authority. The "mystery of iniquity" was at work in 
Paul's day; it diffused itself gradually, and did not become 
fully manifest for centuries. Most, or all, of the so-called 



48 ECCLESIASTICAL TRADITION. 

"Roman errors" existed in a high stage of development 
long before the time of Gregory the Great. If any man 
doubt it, let him read Isaac Taylor's "Ancient Christian- 
ity." The antiquity of the Greek and Anglican minds, 
therefore, has no objective existence. But while in this 
period tradition is more and more trenching upon the 
ground of Scripture, the distinctive Roman doctrine, al- 
though but a fuller unfolding of the earlier one, is of a 
later day, viz. : that Scripture is defective and insufficient 
for salvation. In the words of Principal Cunningham : 

" In the writings of the Fathers of the first three centuries— and the 
same maybe said of the writings, without exception, of many succeed- 
ing centuries — there is not the slightest trace of anything like that de- 
preciation of the Scriptures, that denial of their fitness, because of their 
obscurity and alleged imperfection, to be a sufficient rule or standard of 
faith, which stamp so peculiar a guilt and infamy upon Popery and 
Tractarianism. There is nothing in the least resembling this; on the 
contrary, there is a constant reference to Scripture as the only authori- 
tative standard."* 

From Tertullian to Augustine, tne Fathers are binding 
the Church, themselves included, more and more firmly 
with the cords of tradition ; yet they continually declare 
their liberty, and assert the authority of the Bible. Their 
voices ring out clear in such passages as these: 

Irenaeus, (120-202): "The Scriptures are indeed per- 
fect, since they are spoken by the word of God and His 
spirit, "f " We have learned from none others the plan of 
our salvation, than from those through whom the Gospel 
has come down to us, which they did at one time proclaim 
in public, and, at a later period, by the will of God, handed 
down to us in Scripture, to be the ground and pillar of our 
faith." I 

Tertullian, (160-220) : "I reverence the fullness of His 

^Historical Theology, voL I: pp. 185, 6. 
t Against Heresies, II, xxviii : 2. 
mid. Ill, 1:1. 



HUMAN TRADITION IN THE SECOND STAGE. 49 

Scripture, in which He manifests to me both the Creator 
and the creation." * 

Origen, (185-253): "The two Testaments, * * in 
which every word that appertains to God may be sought 
out and discussed, and from them all knowledge of things 
may be understood. If anything remain, which Holy 
Scripture doth not determine, no third Scripture ought to 
be had recourse to."f 

Hippolytus, (198-236): "There is one God, whom 
we do not otherwise acknowledge, brethren, but out of the 
Sacred Scriptures. * * Whosoever will exercise piety 
toward God, can learn it nowhere but from the Holy 
Scripture."]: 

Athanasius, (296-372): "'The Holy and Divinely In- 
spired Scriptures are of themselves sufficient to the enun- 
ciation of truth." "In these alone the doctrine of sal- 
vation is contained. Let no one add to, or take from 
them."|| 

Cyril of Jerusalem, (3 L5-386): "Concerning the divine 
and holy mysteries of the faith, even the most casual re- 
mark ought not to be delivered without the Sacred Scrip- 
tures ."§ 

Basil, (328-379): "Believe those things which are 
written; the things which are not written seek not." " It 
is a manifest defection from the faith, and a proof of 
arrogance, either to reject anything of what is written, or 
to introduce anything that is not."T 

Ambrose, (340-397): "How can we use those things 
which we find not in the Scriptures?"** 

* Against Hermogenes, xxii. 

\Homily V in Levit. 

\Against the Heresy of Xoetus, ix. 

\\ Festal i Epist. xxxix; against the Gentiles, I. 

§ Catechism, iv: 12. 

^Homily xxix; Concerning Faith, I. 

**Offic, i:23. D 



50 ECCLESIASTICAL TRADITION. 

Chrysostom, (347-407): " Look for no other teacher; 
thou hast the Oracles of God; none teaches thee like 
these."* 

Jerome, (345-420): " We deny not those things which 
are written, so we refuse those which are not writ- 
ten." He then mentions one doctrine, saying, "We be- 
lieve, because we read;" another, "We believe not, because 
we read not."f 

Augustine (354-430): "In those things which are 
plainly laid down in Scripture, all things are found which 
embrace faith and morals. J" 

Vincent of Lerens: " The canon of Scripture is perfect, 
and most abundantly sufficient for all things." § 

Theodoret: "Bring not human reasonings and syllo- 
gisms; I rely on Scripture. "|| 

The above are only a few of the testimonies of similar 
tenor, collected by those who have gleaned the field of 
ancient Christian literature. They echo the constant. voice 
of antiquity. It was only in times comparatively recent 
that the Roman Catholic Church made the attempt to put 
the Scriptures out of sight. Still, in this very period tradi- 
tion was more and more overshadowing the ecclesiastical 
mind. The very writers quoted above are not consistent 
with themselves. When they define the standard of faith, 
they give an increasing weight to the authority of the 
Church and a diminishing weight to the authority of 
Scripture. They call the Bible the rule of faith; but 
say it can be understood only by those who are in the 
Church, and who are, therefore, in possession of the tra- 
ditionary key. As was shown in the last chapter, Tertul- 

*HomiIy ix, on Colossians. %Commonitor, II. 

^Adv. Helvidium. \\ Dialogue 1. 

% Concerning the Doctrine of Christ, II: 0. 

Most of the above quotations may be found in the Bishop of Ely's 
Exposition of the XXXIX Articles, pp. 117-149. 



HUMAN TRADITION IN" THE SECOND STAGE. 51 

lian asserts that in the Church "are the true Scriptures 
and expositions thereof, and all the Christian traditions." 
Basil the Great, says: "Among the points of belief and 
practice in the Church, some were delivered in writing, 
while others were received by Apostolic tradition in mys- 
tery, that is, in a hidden manner; but both have an equal 
efficacy in the promotion of piety; nor are they opposed 
by any one who is but slightly versed in ecclesiastical 
rites. 77 * Basil holds that tradition is a sufficient au- 
thority for rites, but he makes no such claim in the case 
of doctrines. Nor is it irrelevant to remark, that rites were 
rested on the authority of tradition long before doctrines 
were. Epiphanius, also, says concerning rites: "We must 
look also to tradition, for all things cannot be learned from 
Scripture. For which reason the Holy Apostles left some 
things in writing and others not."f Also Chrysostom: 
" Hence, it is plain they did not deliver all things by epis- 
tle, but many without writing; yet the latter are worthy 
of faith like the former. Therefore, let us hold the tra- 
ditions of the Church to b<? worthy of faith. It is a tra- 
dition; seek nothing more. "J Also Augustine: " I could 
not believe the Gospel unless the authority of the Catholic 
Church led or moved me," which proves, according to 
Hagenbach, "That Augustine considered the believer 
(subjectively), but not the Bible (objectively), to be de- 
pendent on that authority. "S What Augustine did mean 
in saying he could not believe the Gospel without the 
authority of the Church, has been the subject of much 
dispute. The author just quoted says his language is 
equivalent to this: "The authority of the Church is the 
witness for the divinity of the Scriptures; for how could 
I convince unbelievers, if I were not permitted to appeal 

* Concerning the Holy Spirit, xxvii. t Homily iv, on II Thess.,iiL 
-[Heresies, 61. $ Hist, of Doctrines, I, p. 810. 



52 ECCLESIASTICAL TRADITION. 

to the authority of the Church? I must depend on this 
to know what the canon of Hoi 7 Writ is, and its right in- 
terpretation."* 

All of the Fathers just quoted are on record as attesting 
the sufficiency of Scripture. Still, a tendency more and 
more to emphasize tradition is clearly apparent in their 
writings. Hagenbach says: "It was rather the case in 
ecclesiastical controversies and elsewhere, the Bible was 
appealed to as the highest authority; also in practice most 
urgently recommended to the people. It was constantly 
held in reverence as the purest source of truth, the Book 
of books." In one of his controversies, Augustine proves 
the authority of the Church from the Bible, allowing no 
argument to be valid which was not drawn from this 
source. Sometimes it was asserted that tradition should 
be tested by Scripture, in respect both to rites and doc- 
trines. Thus Cyprian, in his controversy with Pope Ste- 
phen about heretical baptism, appeals from the Roman 
tradition, and "goes back," in the words of Hagenbach, 
"from the dried up canal to the source, to the oldest tra- 
dition, viz: the Sacred Scriptures. {Divines Traditionis 
Caput et Origo.)"\ In the same controversy, Cyprian de- 
clares, that "Custom without truth is the antiquity of 
error." Tertullian sharply says: " Christ gave Himself the 
cognomen of Truth, not of custom;" and adds: "Whatever 
has a savor against the truth is heresy, although an ancient 
custom." In these later quotations, we may see how some 
of the Fathers shrank from wearing the heavy yoke of 
custom that they were binding upon the necks of their 
brethren. 

It should be added that tradition in the West differed 
considerably from tradition in the East. The former was 
positive and realistic, depending on the external unity of 

* Hist, of Doctrines, I, p. 316. + Ibid. I, p. 97. 



HUMAN TRADITION IN THE SECOND STAGE. 53 

the Church; while the latter, especially in the school of 
Alexandria, was more idealistic and subjective, in fact, 
almost an esoteric doctrine. These two views exhibit the 
hard, practical tendency of the Latin mind, and the spec- 
ulative tendency of the Greciau mind. 

Besides, tradition had its mystical and secret side. 
Especially was this true in the East. Here there are un- 
mistakable traces of an attempt to make the Church, in- 
stead of a popular communion open to all the world, a 
secret corporation. A volume would be required to give 
the history of this attempt. The Gospel could not be un- 
derstood outside the Church ; in the ecclesiastical corpor- 
ation was the key to the meaning of Scripture. One of 
the theories put forth to explain the meaning of "Sym- 
bolum," a term early applied to the Creed, is that it was 
analogous to the pass-words of secret societies — a sign 
by which members of the Christian society could be 
known. A disposition to surround the Church with the 
obscurity and fascination of mystery, by making it a close 
corporation, would not overlook the excellent opportunity 
to accomplish its purpose furnished by tradition. Hence, 
the mystical side of this doctrine. It would be too much 
to say the Church ever wholly lost its popular character 
and became a secret organization, transmitting a secret 
mystical doctrine known to the initiated and carefully con- 
cealed from the rest of the world ; but to a considerable 
extent this was the case. This secret, mystical side of 
tradition finds its explanation in such considerations as 
these : The natural desire in an age of persecution to find 
security in secrecy; an assimilation, conscious or uncon- 
scious, on the part of the Church to the secret societies 
and schools that abounded in the East; and the great oppor- 
tunity to increase their power that a half secret, half-mys- 
tical tradition presented to the clergy. 



54 ECCLESIASTICAL TRADITION. 

In the period with which we are now dealing, what is 
called the Apostolical Tradition took on a new form ; it was 
reduced to writing, and ceased to be an oral communica- 
tion. In fact, this change had commenced in the second 
century. As this was an important change in the form, 
and even in the nature of ecclesiastical tradition, it must 
be described somewhat at length. 

The laws of England are of two kinds, the common law 
and the statute law: Lex non scripia and lex scripta. 
The written or statute law is that law which was originally 
promulgated, principally by the legislature, in a wriiten 
form called statutes, acts, or edicts. The unwritten or 
common law, according to Blackstone, " includes not only 
general customs, or the common law properly so-called, but 
also the particular customs of certain parts of the king- 
dom; and likewise those particular laws, that are by custom 
observed only in certain courts and jurisdictions." He 
cautions the reader, however, against supposing that the 
unwritten law is "at present merely oral, or communicated 
from the former ages to the present solely by word of 
mouth." He then proceeds to show that the unwritten 
law is in fact written : "The monuments and evidences 
of our legal customs are contained in the records of the 
several courts of justice in books of reports and judicial 
decisions, and in the treatises of learned sages of the pro- 
fession, preserved and handed down tons from the times of 
highest antiquity."* Accordingly, the common law is un- 
written in the sense that much of it was not written in the 
beginning, and in the sense that none of it was promul- 
gated in the form of statutes, as are the acts of Parliament. 

There is an obvious analogy between the Common law 
of England and tradition. In one sense both are un- 
written; in another sense both are written. It must, 

* Commentaries, i : 63, 4. 



HUMAN TKADITION IN THE SECOND STAGE. 55 

not be supposed that tradition, although at first un- 
written, has never been reduced to writing ; that it con- 
tinues an oral communication, floating on the air from 
age to age ; an esoteric doctrine handed down by word 
of mouth within the hierarchy; that it was kept alive, 
as songs sometimes have been, and as the rabinnical tradi- 
tions were, by oral repetition. Even the staunchest advo- 
cate makes no such claim. Of course, the first appeals to 
oral tradition were oral themselves ; but in no case could 
tradition be effectually appealed to without stating what 
the voice of tradition was. Just so soon, therefore, as men 
began, in written documents, to build upon tradition, tra- 
dition began to be reduced to writing. Besides, the very 
perishableness of an oral communication would lead those 
who venerated antiquity to give it a more permanent form. 
Eusebius gives us an example of this in the case of Igna- 
tius. As this Father was carried a prisoner through Asia, 
" he exhorted them to adhere firmly to the tradition of the 
Apostles; which, for the sake of greater security, he deemed 
it necessary to attest by committing it to writing."* It was 
to secure this end that he is represented as writing his vari- 
ous epistles. The principle in harmony with which Ignatius 
acted, is a sound one ; it is recognized in the Scriptures 
themselves ; rightly applied, it cuts away the ground on 
which any tradition later than the middle of the second 
century claiming to be authentic can stand. If Ignatius 
thought it necessary, at the opening of the second cen- 
tury, for -'the sake of greater security," to reduce tradi- 
tion to writing, what shall be said of a pretended oral tradi- 
tion a century or two later? Partly from the very nature of 
historical and controversial literature, partly from affection, 
what purported to be the unwritten word of God, in course 
of time, was reduced to writing. Those who espouse tradi- 

*Eccl. Hist., iii : 36. 



56 ECCLESIASTICAL TRADITION. 

tion do not agree how far the analogy of the common law 
holds good. Eoman Catholics say it holds in this: As 
the common law contains matter not found in the written 
law, so tradition contains doctrine not found in Scripture; 
but this most Anglicans and Old Catholics deny. 

To use another illustration: Eeference was made in the 
first part of this essay to the Count de Chambord's adher- 
ence to the traditions of his house. Where are those tradi- 
tions to be found? Not, indeed, in didactic treatises. 
Nor have they been handed down in a private and secret 
way in the successions of the family. They must be 
sought for in the history of the Bourbons, and this is writ- 
ten in the annals of modern France. 

How long a really divine tradition continued to flow in 
an oral channel, or at what time the original oral testimony, 
through corruption, lost its identity and practically ceased 
to exist, no one can tell. For prudential reasons, if for 
no other, it is not best to draw water from this stream after 
the completion of the New Testament canon. No doubt 
much of what passed as tradition in the third and fourth 
centuries had been drawn originally from the Bible. Nor 
can we precisely tell to what extent the stream had been 
corrupted. Certain it is that its swollen current now bore 
along numerous innovations in the faith and polity of the 
Church. But these questions need not here detain us. It 
is enough to know that, sooner or later, the traditions of 
antiquity were written, and that they could no longer be 
certified except by appealing to books. As the common 
law is not an oral communication, handed down in the 
English judiciary or in the Inns of Court, but is drawn 
by the learned in the law from old decisions and treatises; 
so the tradition of the ancient Church does not float on 
the air, but is drawn by theologians and ecclesiastical 
jurists from ancient Church literature. The literature of 



HUMAtf TRADITION" lis" THE SECOND STAGE. 57 

the Church, the writings of Fathers, the edicts of Popes, 
the decisions of Councils, contain everything that is 
called tradition. 

To believers in tradition, the so-called Catholic litera- 
ture of the ancient Church is practically a bible, though 
confessedly written by uninspired men. To appeal to it as 
a Divine authority, is to have recourse to what Origen calls 
a " third Scripture.'' Just what documents are Catholic, 
what Fathers, edicts and decisions, describe the circle of 
ancient catholicity, at what time the last scintilla of Divine 
truth became fixed in written words — are questions in dis- 
pute among believers in tradition; but that tradition has 
all been reduced to writing, is agreed on all hands. Once 
more, all such believers hold to the formula of St. Vincent: 
"That is to be believed which has been received always, 
everywhere, and by everybody :" Quod semper, quod ubique, 
quod ab omnibus, creditum est. In our day Greeks, Latins, 
Anglicans, and Old Catholics unite in holding that this rule 
is the measure of Christian doctrine. However, the rule 
gives very different results when it is applied by different 
hands. Moreover, according to the Catholic view, tradi- 
tion, although all reduced to writing centuries ago, may 
not have been defined in articles of faith at any given 
time. 

Even the casual reader will notice the frequent occur- 
rence of the phrase " Church authority;'' he will also 
notice that it has been used as nearly synonymous 
with tradition. The relation of the two, when the eccle- 
siastical system had reached its full development, will be 
considered when we come to treat of tradition in the Ro- 
man Catholic Church; here it is enough to say. their rela- 
tion is that of antecedent and consequent. The ancienl 
Church held that the word of God, both written and un- 
written, had been entrusted to her care: she was to hand 



08 ECCLESIASTICAL TRADITION. 

it onward; also to hand on the hermenentical tradition. 
Out of this claim grew immediately and necessarily the 
claim of authority in the hierarchical sense. If she was 
divinely appointed to deliver doctrine, men were divinely 
commanded to receive it at her hands. Whenever, there- 
fore, she declared tradition, either by delivering the un- 
written word or interpreting Scripture, she was moving 
in the sphere of authority. 

However, even at this early day the Church asserted an 
authority that sprang from another source. Almost from 
the first, as will appear fully in the next Part, two princi- 
ples, different, if not antagonistic, have struggled for the 
mastery — tradition and inspiration, "The belief in the 
inspiration of Scripture neither excluded faith in an exist- 
ing tradition," says Hagenbach, ' ' nor in a continuance of 
an inspiration of the Spirit."* He says: "Not only tran- 
sient visions, in which pious individuals received divine 
instructions and disclosures, were compared to the revela- 
tions recorded in Scripture, but still more the continued 
illumination which the Fathers enjoyed when assembled in 
council." The Councils borrowed the Apostolic formula, 
" It seemeth good to the Holy Spirit and to us:"f Visum est 
Spiritui Sancto et nobis. Constantine called the decrees 
of Nice " a Divine command;" Athanasius said, "What 
God has spoken by the Council of Nice abides forever;" 
Gregory the Great put the first four Councils on a level 
with the four Gospels; and the Emperor Justinian equal- 
ized them with the Scriptures]; The doctrine of a per- 
petual inspiration seems to have grown out of the doctrine 
of tradition, and yet in some sense it is the higher claim. 
The former and not the latter appears to be the immediate 
antecedent of the dogma of papal infallibility. 

*Vol. I., pp. 323,4. 

+ Acts xv : 28. 

% Schaff's Hist of the Church, II, pp. 341, 2. 



HUMAN" TEADITION IN THE SECOND STAGE. 59 

In a rapid way I have now followed the thread of tradi- 
tion to the doors of the Mediaeval Church. That vast lab- 
yrinth I do not propose to enter. In that period of dense 
ignorance and growing priestly power known as the Dark 
Ages, we may be sure no backward step was taken. All 
through the middle age the Church went on spinning the 
thread and winding itself up in the cocoon of tradition, un- 
til her spiritual life was almost smothered. At the point 
where this historical sketch terminates, only one step re- 
mained to be taken to bring the Church to the ground 
occupied by the Roman Catholic communion previous to 
the Council of the Vatican — to declare the Scriptures in- 
sufficient for salvation, and to degrade them to a level with 
tradition. When and by whom this was first suggested, I 
do not enquire. Its first distinct authoritative affirma- 
tion was by the Council of Trent, as we shall see hereafter. 



CHAPTER V, 



SOME PRINCIPAL CAUSES OF THE HUMAN 
TRADITION. 

It is well known that, in the time of Christ, the heart of 
the Old Testament had been eaten out by tradition. This 
tradition consisted partly of human additions to the 
Divine law; partly of constructions or interpretations that, 
like the " fictions" of the civil law, cut away the very law 
which they professed to make plain. Christ called it a 
"tradition of men," and said "it made void the law of 
God." With the Jewish example before them, and the 
denunciations of Christ fresh in their minds, the Christian 
ministry might perhaps have been expected to keep the 
new Church free from such parasitic growths. In fact, 
however, they fell an easy prey to this greatest enemy of 
spiritual religion. When we have considered the main 
causes that brought about this result, we shall no longer 
wonder that such was the case. 

Society is a balance of two forces — conservatism and 
progress. As Mr. Bagehot puts it, "getting a fixed law," 
and "getting out of a fixed law ;" "cementing a cake of 
-custom," and " breaking the cake of custom;" "making 
the first preservative habit, and breaking through it and 



PIUNCIPAL CAUSES OF THE HUMAN TKADITION. 61 

reaching something better."* The latter, he very justly 
says, is the more difficult step. Still, without a con- 
servative habit there would be no continuity in human life; 
each day would begin anew, having no relation to the one 
that went before ; there would be neither habits nor acqui- 
sitions, and real progress would be impossible. All human 
discipline comes from doing over and over again the same 
thing. We need not wonder, then, at the strength of the 
conservative habit, or the firmness of the cake of custom. 
The very difficulty with which the second step in civiliza- 
tion is taken, shows the power of the conservative habit. 
In fact, conservatism is exceedingly vigorous in ail depart- 
ments of life ; so vigorous that it becomes a hindrance to 
the civilization that cannot exist without it. What is 
more, the affiliation of religion and tradition, which is the 
essence of conservatism, is remarkably close ; religious faith 
and feeling entwine themselves about antiquity. The 
sentiments of veneration and reverence treat with great re- 
spect whatever has been delivered by the Fathers, and do 
not carefully inquire what has been so delivered. Besides, 
piety is here strengthened by both pride and laziness. As 
a result, the "machine" habit of mind — which is the 
method by tradition — nowhere plays a greater part than in 
the field of religion. 

Considering only the facts just set forth, we might have 
expected that conservatism would have held the Jews fast 
to their Law, and the Christians to their Gospel, thus pre- 
venting, in both cases, the fungus growths of human tra- 
dition. But here the fact of movement or the principle of 
progress comes into play, and tends to break tip the cake 
of custom. In early times, no sooner was a law firmly 
established than the innovating spirit began its subversion. 

*Phy&ics and Politics, p. 53* 



62 ECCLESIASTICAL TRADITION. 

The process of commenting, adapting, and refining began ; 
to fit the law to existing needs, the judges cut off a little 
here and added a little there ; "fiction," ^although profess- 
ing to preserve the law, and really preserving the name 
and form, virtually made it all over. In the meantime the 
people, holding antiquity in the greatest reverence, and 
not dreaming what was going on, clung firmly to the code 
of the fathers, as they thought, although really clinging 
to one becoming in some sense new every day. Even with 
its conservative bias, the human mind cannot stand strictly 
still ; it will move either backwards or forwards ; and noth- 
ing is risked in saying, no tradition that really touched 
human life ever continued wholly the same for one hun- 
dred years. No better illustration of this fact can be given 
than the Koman Catholic Church. Tradition is one of the 
most marked features of the Roman mind ; the Church's 
measure of faith is quod semper, quod uMque, quod db 
omnibus; her proud boast is semper eadem, — still her his- 
tory shows that from the days of Gregory the Great she has 
all the time been on a slow march away from her own 
antiquity. 

A Divine law admits of no additions except from its 
original source ; hence, it leaves no room for develop- 
ment save in the field of commentary and adaptation 
to changing wants and states. Loyalty to a Divine 
law does not, as sometimes charged, involve immobility, 
which is spiritual death. It allows a constant exposition 
and adaptation ; also what historians call an " historical 

*I do not know that any writer has noticed the analogy of tradition 
and what lawyers called " fiction." Sir Henry Sumner Maine thus de- 
fines fiction: "Any assumption which conceals or affects to conceal the 
fact that a rule of law has undergone alteration, its letter remaining 
unchanged, its operation being modified." "The fact is that the law 
has been wholly changed; the fiction is that it remains what it was." — 
Ancient Law, chap. ii. 



PRINCIPAL CAUSES OF THE HUMAN TRADITION. 63 

development."* Disloyalty begins when the new com- 
mentary or adaptation, made for any reason, as to meet 
new conditions, comes to be considered an authoritative 
rule itself. That is " making void the law of God " by the 
traditions of men, and constituted the peculiar offense 
both of the Jewish rabbis and of the Christian clergy. 
The tradition principle is at work whenever and wherever 
the historical development is taken as a standard of truth. 
More commonly those who create the new law suppose 
they are simply expounding the old one. Hence, tradition 
is largely an unconscious creation, and is more an indi- 
rect than a direct invention of men. It is more the work 
of the general than of the individual consciousness. 

The general causes that produced the ecclesiastical tra- 
dition reside in the human mind; but they worked under 
conditions most favorable to their power. None of these 
causes were more prominent than these: 

1. The Gospel was first an oral testimony. 

2. The prevalent ignorance, especially after the Dark 
Ages set in, compelled the Church teachers to rely almost 
wholly upon oral teaching in educating and disciplining 
the Church. 

* John Robinson, the Pilgrim pastor, seems to have discerned the 
range that a Divine revelation gives to the human mind as respects the 
matters mentioned above. In his parting charge to his flock, as reported 
by one who heard him, he said: 

"He charged us, before God and his blessed angels, to follow him no further 
than he followed Christ; and, if God should reveal anything to us by any otber in- 
strument of His, to be as ready to receive it as ever we were to receive any truth by 
his ministry. For he was very confident the Lord had more truth and light yet to 
break forth out of His Holy Word." * * * " Here, also he put us in mind 
of our Church covenant, or, at least, that part of it whereby we promise and cove- 
nant with God, and one with another, to receive whatever light or truth shall lie 
made known to us from His Written Word. But, withal, he exhorted us to take 
heed what we received for truth, and well to examine and compare it. and weigh it 
with other Scripture of truth before we received it. For, saith he, it is not possible 
the Christian world should come so lately out of such thick anti-Christian darkness 
and full perfection of know'edge break forth at once " 



64 ECCLESIASTICAL TRADITION. 

3. The general scarcity of books tended to the same end. 

4. These two causes put the written standard of doctrine 
beyond popular reach. 

5. The heretical challenge of the Scriptures stimulated 
the habit of appealing to the successions of the bishops. 

Then certain great changes in the doctrine, organiza- 
tion, and spirit of the Church, contributed to the develop- 
ment of tradition. Three of these will now be stated at 
some length : 

First : the ministry is no longer simply a teaching and 
ruling body; it has become a priesthood. Between a min- 
ister in the New Testament sense and a priest, the differ- 
ence is very great. The latter, in the broadest sense, is a 
sacred person who is the custodian of Divine grace, and an 
intermediary between God and man. His great function 
is to offer sacrifice at the altar, to propitiate God by mak- 
ing an atonement for sin; he is the sole administrator of 
sacred rites. Such, were the essential functions of the Jew- 
ish priesthood. The Christian minister is a very different 
sort of person. His office is to preach, to teach, and to 
rule. In no sense is he an intermediary, in no sense does 
he offer sacrifice or make an atonement, in no sense is he a 
priest. He is a preacher, and his Old Testament prototype 
is the prophet. Christ is the only priest known to Chris- 
tianity. But it was not long until the New Testament 
idea began to give place to the Old Testament idea. This 
great change was accomplished through the imitation, con- 
scious or unconscious, of the Jewish system. It was helped 
forward by the presence, within the confines of the Christian 
world, of the Pagan religions, each one of which had its sac- 
erdotal system. But these two causes, in themselves, do not 
explain this great innovation in doctrine and in polity. The 
priestly system is much more favorable to ecclesiastical 
ambition than the ministerial. When you clothe a man 



PRINCIPAL CAUSES OF THE HUMAN TRADITION. 65 

with sacerdotal powers, when you make him an almoner of 
Divine grace, when yon constitute him a virtual official 
intercessor with God, when yon make him the exclusive 
administrator of holy ordinances to which a sacramental 
efficacy is attributed, — you give him a far greater power 
over the souls and lives of men than he can ever wield so 
long as he is a simple teacher and ruler. But this was not 
all. Not only had the primitive ministry become a priest- 
hood, but it had assumed a complete external organiza- 
tion. By the fifth century, a thoroughly organized hier- 
archy had arisen; deacons, priests, bishops, metropolitans, 
and patriarchs. A kingdom of the clergy had sprung up 
within the kingdom of Christ. The clerical body was sep- 
arated from the laity. Many of the rites and functions 
that originally belonged to each member of the Church, as 
a king and a priest to God, had passed into the hands of 
the clergy. Many of the democratical features of the 
primitive Church had passed away; aristocratical features 
had taken their place, only to give way themselves, a little 
later, to those that were monarchical. When this great 
ecclesiastical innovation was fully accomplished, as it was 
not at the time to which the preceding sketch extends, on 
the one side of a clearly marked line stood the great, dumb 
laity ; on the other, the hierarchy, almost omnipotent in 
the affairs of the Church, and often called the Church. 
When this change had fully taken place, the so-called 
Christian minister was more powerful than the Jewish 
priest had ever been, for he united to the teaching and 
ruling functions that properly belonged to him, the essen- 
tial functions of the priest. 

Second: the doctrines and ordinances of the Church 
have passed through analogous changes. 

In great measure, the Levitical spirit dispossessed the 
spirit of the Gospel. The simple Apostolic ordinances be- 

E 



66 ECCLESIASTICAL TRADITION. 

came mystical rites, invested with new names. Especially 
is this true of the Lord's Supper, which, from being a 
simple commemorative feast, became a mysterious sacra- 
ment, in which Christ himself is really present. A large 
number of commemorations, unknown to the New Testa- 
ment and contrary to its spirit, were invented and estab- 
lished. To a great degree, the Christian principle of faith 
gave place to the sacerdotal principle of sacramental virtue. 
More and more room w r as found for the sacrificial princi- 
ple. The faith once delivered to the saints thus received 
a strong Jewish coloring; and, what was more, was thrown 
into highly metaphysical forms. Besides, the simplicity of 
the original Christian worship was wholly lost sight of. 
An extensive ritual, composed partly of Jewish and partly 
of heathen elements, sprang up and overspread the Chris- 
tian world. Liturgies were composed in every language 
spoken by the Church. On the whole, it is not too much 
to say, that the Levitical spirit took possession of the Chris- 
tian body. These innovations in doctrine and in ritual 
gave new prominence and power to the clergy. The met- 
aphysical theology called for a body of professionally 
trained teachers; and only a sacred order, with its own dis- 
cipline and traditions, could officiate at the new altars, 
administer the sacramental ordinances, and. unroll the pan- 
orama of the elaborate ritualistic service. 

Third: with all the rest, the Church has become infalli- 
ble. 

This idea appears to have got afloat as early as the 
second century; at all events it became thoroughly estab- 
lished as early as the fourth. At first, it was the whole 
Christian body that was infallible, the Church, not a par- 
ticular bishop. The Church was the channel of the 
Divine tradition; the Church, therefore, held the key of 
interpretation ; hence, the Church was infallible. In the 



PRINCIPAL CAUSES OF THE HiniAN TRADITION. 67 

Church was life, out of it death. All this was held of the 
visible Historical Church, existing in time. But there 
was a growing tendency to identify the clergy as the 
Church. They soon became the sole channels of Divine 
grace. Irenaeus says tradition is in the Church, but when 
he speaks more narrowly he says it is handed down in the 
successions of the bishops. Cyprian says, "Where the 
Bishop is, there is the Church'' ( Ubi episcopos, %bi ecclesia), 
which came to be an accepted maxim. The doctrine of 
infallibility added immensely to the power of the hierarchy. 
Such questions as, Where is infallibility focalized? Who 
speaks the unerring voice? could not but arise. Nor could 
these questions be answered in more than one way. As the 
tradition was said to be handed down in the successions 
of the bishops, as was natural, since they were the most 
permanent order of the ministry, the heads of the churches; 
so the bishops were held to be the mouth-pieces of the 
Church. But to say that any one bishop was infallible, 
would have staggered the faith of antiquity. It was the 
collective body. Hence the Ecumenical Council was a 
necessity of the system; it was not only the most con- 
venient, but it was the necessary, authority to declare 
tradition. Practically, therefore, the famous concensus or 
agreement of the Church was the concensus of the bishops; 
rather it was the concensus of so many of them as could 
be brought together, or could be induced to agree on cer- 
tain definitions. That the bishops were the successors of 
the Apostles, was firmly held by Irenaeus, and became a 
current article of faith. 

Such are some of the innovations that, at the opening 
of the Middle Ages, floated on the stream of tradition. 
Others that have not been mentioned, are the primacy of 
Peter and the supremacy of the Roman See. It would 
be impossible minutely to give the chronological do- 



68 ECCLESIASTICAL TRADITION". 

velopment of these innovations. Nor is this necessary. 
This general account answers my purpose, for I wish only 
to show how the growth of tradition depended upon other 
growths. 

Side by side these great innovations in the Church grew. 
They exerted a reciprocal influence, helping and helped; 
each one was a cause, and each one an effect. Together 
they constituted the material parts of the new doctrinal 
and ecclesiastical system; still tradition was the root of the 
others; rather the traditional habit of mind was the soil 
out of which they all grew. Tradition conditioned the 
others, and was conditioned by them. Whenever any in- 
novation became sufficiently pronounced to attract general 
attention, its existence, taken in connection with the in- 
fallibility of the Church, furnished a presumption that it 
was a part of the tradition. No other invention could have 
been so favorable to priestly power and assumption, so 
unfavorable to the liberties of the laity. To a great degree, 
it put the sources of religious knowledge beyond the laity's 
reach. What could the latter know of an oral tradi- 
tion handed down in the successions of the bishops, or 
scattered through the ever-increasing volume of ecclesiasti- 
cal writings, except what the clergy chose to tell them? 
Had it been understood that the Gospel was found in cer- 
tain writings few in number and small in volume, and had 
these writings been in the hands of all believers, then the 
means of checking the hierarchy would have been in the 
possession of the mass of Christians. But so long as the 
bishops said, " You are to pay heed to tradition, and this 
is handed down in our successions " — " Tradition is the key 
to Scripture," they wielded an almost irresistible power 
over the Church. A layman may fairly be asked to read 
a small volume, like the New Testament; but if the Bible 
is scattered through five thousand writings, as was the case 



PRINCIPAL CAUSES OF THE HUMAN TRADITION. 60 

with the third Church Scripture, he is practically at the 
mercy of the ecclesiastical profession. Cyprian's ""Where 
the Bishop is, there is the Church," is a just description 
of the ancient Church. Whenever a priest defends a tra- 
dition of which his profession are the custodians, he is 
defending the power of his own order. It is by making- 
men believe that they stand very near to God — that they 
are the channels of holy oracles, the administrators of 
-acred rites — that priests in all ages gain power. As noth- 
ing else is so unfavorable to the rights and liberties of the 
laity as a human tradition, so nothing is so subversive of 
priestly power as an open Bible and the doctrine of pri- 
vate judgment. From the moment that the Reformation 
restored the Scriptures to the masses, and said "Read for 
yourselves," priestly power has been steadily waning. 

Tradition must not be taken, then, as an isolated, unre- 
lated fact, but must be considered in its historical connec- 
tions. It was only one of the human inventions, though 
the most far-reaching, that changed the xApostolic Church 
into the Church of the Middle Ages. 

Before passing to the Second Part, it will be well to 
review the ground passed over: 

1. The Gospel was originally an oral testimony, delivered 
partly by Christ, and partly by the Apostles. 

2. This original oral tradition was first supplemented by 
the Epistles, and then reduced to writing in the Gospels. 

3. The stream of oral teaching continued to flow after 
the New Testament was written. The idea seems never to 
have taken possession of men's minds, that the oral Gospel 
was to cease, or that tradition was not to have weight in 
matters of religion. If it did, there is no distinct histori- 
cal trace of the fact. If such was the understanding at 
anytime, it must have been in the age of the Apostolic 
Fathers, or in the age of Justin, for their writings are the 



70 ECCLESIASTICAL TRADITION. 

only ancient Christian literature in which tradition, in 
some form, and for some purpose, is not plainly recognized. 

4. Human tradition in the Church did not begin in out- 
right manufacture, in the creation of an independent 
source of knowledge. It rather began in the corruption of 
the Divine oral tradition. It was through this gate that 
most, or all, of the more important innovations in the doc- 
trine and organization of the Church came in. 

5. For many centuries tradition was not considered a 
channel of information that conveyed doctrines not found 
in the Bible. It was held to contain the same doctrines. 

6. It was often appealed to as a sufficient authority for 
rites and ceremonies. 

7. It was also held to contain the key to Scripture. 

8. Scripture was held to be perfect, sufficient, and 
supreme — the authoritative rule of faith. 

9. At the same time, tradition waxed stronger and 
stronger, and threatened to undermine faith in the Scrip- 
tures as the only rule. 

10. The progress of tradition was greatly hastened by 
the contemporaneous development of other abuses, such as 
the growth of the hierarchy, the spread within the Church 
of Jewish habits of thought, and the general reception 
of the idea of Church infallibility. 



PART II. 



THE PLACE OF TRADITION IN THE CHURCHES. 



CHAPTER I 



TRADITION IN THE GREEK CHURCH. 

There is a double reason why the Greek Church first 
claims our attention. Historically, it is the oldest of the 
great divisions of Christendom, and it still holds the doc- 
trine of tradition substantially as it was held in the fifth or 
sixth century. However, we are so far removed from the 
Orient, and have been so little influenced historically by 
Oriental Christianity, that the Greek Church need not 
long detain us. Brief quotations from a few standard 
authorities will answer the present purpose. 

The Orthodox Confession : 

"The dogmas of the Church are double and of two kinds; those de- 
livered to us in written form, which are contained in the Divine books of 
the Holy Scriptures, and those delivered by the Apostles by the living 
voice. These are the same that were afterwards more fully declared by 
the Councils and the Holy Fathers. On this double foundation our faith 
has been built." 

The Synod of Jerusalem, 1672, under the title " Shield 

of the Orthodox Faith:" 

"The Church of the Orient has no other doctrine than God's Word 
properly believed, and expounded piously by the holy Fathers; and the 
oral Traditions of the Apostles, preserved to our day by the Fathers." 

Judgment of the Oriental Church : 

' ' We should hold fast to all that we have received from the Fathers 
as to things that are designed to promote our piety, and should not 



TRADITION IN THE GREEK CHURCH. 73 

let them fall into disuse ; for he that despises the doctrine of the Fathers 
despises God. No man should despise, or account as of little conse- 
quence, what has come to us from the ancients, those holy men." 

The Gr mo- Russian Confession of Faith, signed by the 
four Patriarchs of the Orient: 

"An orthodox Christian must accept, and without any doubt, that 
all things of the Catholic faith and of the true Church have been trans- 
mitted by our Lord Jesus Christ, through his Apostles to the Church, 
which the holy General Councils have declared and accepted ; and he 
must believe in these as the Apostle commands, when he says: 'There- 
fore brethren, stand fast, and hold the traditions which ye have been 
taught, whether by word or our epistle.' — II Thess. ii: Lo. And 
elsewhere : ' Now I praise you, brethren, that ye remember me in all 
things, and keep the ordinances, as I delivered them to you.' — I Cor. 
xi : 2, From these words it is clear that the articles of the faith have 
their confirmation and their certainty partly from the Holy Scriptures, 
partly from the traditions of the Church and the teachings of the coun- 
cils of the Holy Fathers." 

It will be seen from the foregoing, that the Greek 
Church holds firmly to tradition and to the authority of 
the Councils. The peculiar Soman doctrines of the Church 
and of the Pope, she rejects. She also gives much more 
room to the Scriptures, in her formularies, and makes 
much greater use of them in her services. Contrary to 
what might be expected, however, she has less life and 
mobility than the Latin Church of the West. But this is 
not the result of her laying less emphasis on tradition and 
more on Scripture; for centuries the Greek Church has 
lain in the midst of the mental stagnation prevailing in 
Western Asia and Southeastern Europe, while the Latin 
Church has been in immediate contact with the energizing 
mental life of Western Europe. 



CHAPTER II, 



TRADITION IN THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH. 

Already it lias been stated that, as early as the third 
century, there was a marked difference between Eastern 
and Western tradition. Even in the days of Clement and 
Irenaeus, the former was more ideal and plastic; the latter 
more realistic, hard, and inflexible. The forces that 
originally produced this difference continually tended to 
increase it. The principal causes that gave Western or 
Latin tradition its peculiar form were two in number: 
First, the hard, dry, conservative quality of the Latin 
mind, constantly seen in its history. The Roman mind 
was unwilling to surrender an old tradition, and equally 
unwilling to understand anything in other than a hard, 
literal sense. Second, the ambition of the Latin Church, 
culminating in the Pope. The Ultramontane papacy is 
built upon an immense basework of traditions. Hence it 
is, that no other Christian communion holds the doctrine 
of tradition in so extreme and rigid a form. How she 
holds the doctrine, I now undertake to show. 

The ancient Church poured its flood of human traditions 
into the mediaeval; the mediaeval again discharged it, 
greatly augmented, into the modern Latin Church. The 
papacy floated upon the swelling stream. Still, at the 
opening of the Protestant era, the doctrine of tradition 



TRADITION IX THE ROM AX CATHOLIC CHURCH. 75 

had never been formulated, and had no dogmatic shape. 
This work was performed by that famous Council which 
put in their places and groined together the various parts 
of the theological and ecclesiastical system, the forging of 
which had occupied ten centuries. The Council of Trent's 
decree on tradition is all the more significant when con- 
sidered in its historical connection. Luther attacked, not 
only many of the traditions of Some, but her doctrine of 
tradition as well. He declared that men must return to 
the Bible, if they would understand Christianity. It has 
been said that the Reformation raised the question whether 
the Bible or the Church should be the supreme religious 
authority. At that time the Bible was almost a lost book; 
and the Eeformation has the imperishable honor of hav- 
ing restored it to the Western world, and given it general 
currency. For the time being, the Protestant onset 
threatened to sweep everything before it. Luther ap- 
pealed to a General Council, which Borne did not dare 
convoke. It was not until the consternation produced 
by the great movement had partially subsided, and the 
Jesuits had begun the reorganization of the Papal forces 
on a new system, that one was called. When the bishops 
came together at Trent, in 1545, they composed a council 
very different from the one that Luther had so often de- 
manded. The work it took in hand was not to reform 
doctrine and to cleanse the Church, but to put the exist- 
ing Roman system in the best shape for defence. For cen- 
turies men had sleepily rested on tradition, but without 
defining its place in theology. But now that the Reform- 
ers affirmed the sufficiency of Scripture and repudiated 
tradition, Rome was compelled to speak out. It has been 
said that, at Trent, there were as many opinion- re- 
specting tradition as there were tongues. Some affirmed 
that the Bible itself rested on tradition. Some argued 



76 ECCLESIASTICAL TRADITION. 



that the Church should be treated of before Scripture, since 
the latter rested on the former. Others recoiled from these 
propositions, and argued that it was best to leave the mat- 
ter where the Fathers had left it. But it did not and 
could not long remain doubtful what was the temper of 
the Council. Roman Catholicism could not now deny its 
own paternity. Hence, when the Council found its voice, 
which it did in the fourth session, it declared the follow- 
ing to be the Soman Catholic doctrine of tradition: 

"The sacred, holy, ecumenical and general Council of Trent, law- 
fully assembled in the Holy Spirit, the three before-mentioned legates of 
the Apostolic See presiding therein ; having constantly in view the re- 
moval of error and the preservation of the purity of the Gospel in the 
Church, which Gospel, promised before by the prophets in the Sacred 
Scriptures, was first orally published by our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son 
of God, who afterwards commanded it to be preached by his Apostles to 
every creature, as the source of all-saving truth and discipline ; and per- 
ceiving that this truth and discipline are contained both in written 
books and in unwritten traditions which have come down to us, either 
received by the Apostles from the lips of Christ himself, or transmitted 
by the hands of the same Apostles, under the dictation of the Holy 
Spirit ; following the example of the orthodox Fathers , doth receive and 
reverence, with equal piety and veneration, all the books, as well of the 
Old as of the New Testament, the same God being the author of both, 
and also the aforesaid traditions, pertaining both to faith and manners, 
whether received from Christ himself, or dictated by the Holy Spirit, 
and preserved in the Catholic Church by continual succession. " 

Such was the reply of the Roman Church to Protestant- 
ism. So far from the Protestant challenge effecting a 
softening of the doctrine, it rather caused its crystaliza- 
tion in its worst form. Let it be noted on what ground 
the Roman traditions are placed; they are "received from 
Christ himself/' or "dictated by the Holy Spirit." Upon 
this point Catholic writers are very explicit. Cardinal 
Wiseman asks: "What then, my brethren, is the rule of 
faith which our Church admits?" and answers: "The 
Word of God, the Word of God alone and exclusively; but 
here comes in the great trenching difference between our- 



TRADITION IX THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH. 77 

selves and others in the inquiry, what is the extent of God's 
Holy Word? " He then proceeds to expound the doctrine 
of the unwritten Word, its origin and its permanent 
authority, concluding as follows: 

"By the unwritten Word of God, we mean a body of doctrines, 
which, in consequence of express declarations in the written "Word, we 
believe not to have been committed in the first instance to writing, but 
delivered by Christ to his Apostles, and by the Apostles to their succes- 
sors. "We believe that no new doctrine can be introduced into the 
Church, but that every doctrine which we hold, has existed, and been 
taught in it ever since the time of the Apostles; having been handed 
down by them to their successors under the only guarantee on which we 
receive doctrines from the Church, that is, Christ's promises to abide 
with it forever, to assist, direct, and instruct it, and always teach in and 
through it. So that, while giving our implicit credit, and trusting our 
judgment to it, we are believing, and trusting to the express teaching 
and sanction of Christ himself. Tradition, therefore, my brethren, or 
the doctrines delivered down, and the unwritten Word of God, are one 
and the same thing."* 

The Creed of Pope Pius IV., a pretended summary of 
the decrees of Trent, contains the following: "I most 
fully admit and embrace Apostolical and ecclesiastical 
traditions, and all other constitutions and observances of 
the same Church." The pious Moehler defined tradition, 
in the subjective sense of the word, to be "the ecclesiasti- 
cal consciousness," "the peculiar Christian sense existing 
in the Church, and transmitted by ecclesiastical educa- 
tion." In the objective sense, he called it "the general 
faith of the Church through all ages, manifested by out- 
ward historical testimonies. "f 

Affirmatively, then, the Roman Catholic Church holds 
that the Word of God is two-fold — written and unwrit- 
ten — Scripture and tradition; that these are the comple- 
ments of each other, and of equal authority. Negatively, 
she denies both the perspicuity and sufficiency of Scrip- 

*Doctrines of the Church, I., p. 63. 
^Symbolism, New York, pp. 273-4. 



78 ECCLESIASTICAL TRADITION. 

ture. However, this doctrine can never be understood 

separate and apart from her doctrine of the Church. 

That the Church traditions do not float in the air, that 

they are not now handed down in an oral form, has been 

shown in a previous chapter. In the words of Cardinal 

Wiseman: 

" But it must not be thought that Catholics conceive there is a certain 
mass of vague and floating opinions, which may, at the option of the 
Pope, or of a General Council, or of the whole Church, be turned into 
articles of faith. Neither is it implied by the term unwritten Word, 
that these articles of faith or traditions are nowhere recorded.'* 

The traditions are scattered through the writings of 
Fathers, the edicts of Popes, the decisions of Councils. 
More than a thousand years must be ranged over to find 
all the leaves of the third Bible. The learned and tireless 
Ussher was occupied more than eighteen years in reading 
the Fathers of the first six centuries, although he read a 
portion of them every day. The inquiry, How shall 
the sense of tradition be gathered? is, therefore, a por- 
tentous one. It becomes even more portentous, when the 
additional fact is stated that, on many points, the Fathers 
are irreconcilably contradictory. The great name of 
Chillingworth authenticates the statement: " There are 
Fathers against Fathers, and Fathers against themselves;, 
a consent of Fathers of one age against a consent of Fathers 
of another age." What spirit is to move upon the face of 
this formless deep? What power is to bring order out of 
this confusion? Here we meet the logical necessity, in a 
Roman point of view, of an infallible Church; the interior 
reason why the doctrine of the Church grew, pari passu, 
with the doctrine of tradition. The more Christians be- 
lieved in a traditional Gospel, the more they felt the need 
of an authoritative body that should declare that Gospel* 
By the exercise of private judgment, a man could make out 

^Doctrines of the Church, I., p. 63. 



TRADITION IN THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH. 79" 

the leading doctrines of the New Testament; but to gather 
"the peculiar Christian sense existing in the Church" from 
the -swollen stream of ecclesiastical literature, was an im- 
possibility. Hence the catholic mind of antiquity, out of 
the declaration that the gates of Hell should not prevail 
against the Church, and the promise that Christ would be 
with his disciples to the end of the world, constructed the 
doctrine of infallibility. Not that the infallible Church 
was the sole product of logical forces working from within; 
perhaps it was even more largely the result of practical 
forces working from without; but we must not overlook 
the tendency of the ecclesiastical logic, least of all the logi- 
cal necessity for some organ for tradition. Of what use is 
an inspired tradition, unless it flows through an inspired 
channel? But it was not enough to call the Church in- 
fallible, and the mouthpiece of tradition; since that left 
unanswered, the question, How is the Church to act ? 
Men could not help asking, " Who utters the infallible 
voice?" and "How are we to identify the infallible de- 
liverances?" It was idle to recite St. Vincent's formula, 
"'Believe what has been received always, everywhere, and 
by everybody;" for this only turned the inquirer back to 
roam once more the wide field of antiquity. That the 
light of the Church should somewhere be focalized, was 
both a logical and a practical necessity. For many cen- 
turies the General Council, composed of the bishops, in 
whose successions the traditions were said to be handed 
down, was the organ of Church infallibility. By and by, 
when the power of the Pope had greatly increased, it was 
asserted, in his interest, that he had some important func- 
tions to perform in declaring the faith. At first, however, 
these functions were subordinate to the functions of the 
council; the Pope must call the council, preside over its 
deliberations in person or by legate, and, perhaps, sanction 



80 ECCLESIASTICAL TRADITION. 

its decrees. Even this much interference with the rights 
and duties of the representative body of the whole Church, 
was resented by the more independent bishops. Some of 
the councils spoke out very plainly on this point. That of 
Basle declared: "ISToneof the skillful did ever doubt of 
this truth, that the Pope, in things belonging to faith, was 
subject to the judgment of the same General Councils — 
that the Council has an authority immediately from Christ, 
which the Pope is bound to obey." This view was strongly 
opposed by the champions of papal authority. Baronius 
proclaimed it an absurd and unreasonable opinion of 
Hincmar's, "that the canons of councils were of greater 
authority in the Church of God than the decrees of Popes.'' 
Perhaps it is needless to remark, that this view was very 
distasteful to the Popes themselves. At the commence- 
ment of the modern era, the relations of the Pope to the 
council had not been dogmatically determined; practically, 
however, the two united in denning faith and morals, the 
Pope rather as an adjunct to the council. Says Dr. Bar- 
row: "This is a question stiffly debated among Romanists: 
but the most, as ^Eneas Sylvius, afterward Pope Pins II., 
did acutely observe, with good reason do adhere to the 
Pope's side, because the Pope clisposeth of benefices, but 
councils give none."* Nor has this point been definitely 
determined to this day. The council of the Vatican, in 
1870, declared it to be a dogma divinely revealed: 

" That the Roman Pontiff, when he speaks ex cathedra, that is, when 
in discharge of the office of pastor and doctor of all Christians, by virtue 
of his supreme apostolic authority, he defines a doctrine regarding faith 
or morals to be held by the universal Church, by the Divine assistance 
promised to him in blessed Peter, is possessed of that infallibility with 
which the Divine Redeemer willed that His Church should be endowed 
for defining doctrine regarding faith or morals; and that therefore such 
definitions of the Roman Pontiff are irreformable of themselves, and 
not from the consent of the Church." 

* Barrow's Works, Edinburgh, 1841: III., p. 187. 



TRADITION IX THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH. 81 

In its essential features, this decree completed that 
hierarchical edifice, the first faint outlines of which are 
found in the so-called " Ignatian Epistles." But how does 
this decree affect the doctrine of tradition? 

Before the last council sat, the Catholic method of 
settling the faith, if we can safely follow Cardinal Wise- 
man, was as follows: 

" Suppose a difficulty to arise regarding any doctrine — so that men 
should differ, and not know what precisely to believe, and that the 
Church thought it prudent or necessary to define what is to be held ; the 
method pursued would be to examine most accurately the writings of the 
Fathers of the Church, to ascertain what, in different countries and in 
different ages, was by them held; and then, collecting the suffrages of all 
the world and of all times — not indeed to create a new Article of Faith — 
but to define what has always been the Faith of the Catholic Church. 
It is conducted, in every instance, as a matter of historical inquiry, and 
all human prudence is used to arrive at a judicious decision. But when 
the Church is assembled for this solemn purpose, in consequence of those 
promises of Christ, which I shall develop at full length hereafter, we be- 
lieve it impossible that the decrees which she issues can be false or incor 
rect, because Christ's promises would fail and be made void, should the 
Church be allowed to fall into error."* 

It will be observed that, according to this view, the 
council was to proceed as with "a matter of historical in- 
quiry," using " all human prudence'" to arrive at a judi- 
cious result, and that then the Divine assistance would be 
enjoyed. But since the Vatican decree, these requisites 
are not necessary, unless in the case of the Pope. Precisely 
how the decree affects him, we are left to conjecture. 
Must lie proceed by the method of historical inquiry and 
human prudence? or does he have the Divine assistance 
promised to him in blessed Peter, without taking such 
precautions? Pope Innocent X. could be quoted in favor 
of the latter view. This Pontiff said " the vicar of Jesus 
Christ was not obliged to examine all things by dispute; 

* Doctrines of the Church, I., p. 63. 



82 ECCLESIASTICAL TRADITION. 

for that the truth of his decrees depended only on Divine 
inspiration," in which case, to quote the words of Dr. 
Barrow, "he pronounces only by miracle, as Balaam's 
ass."* Bbermann, one of the Jesuit theologians, has said; 
"A thoroughly ignorant Pope may very well be infallible; 
for God has before now pointed out the right road by the 
mouth of a speaking ass." Probably most Catholic theolo- 
gians are not prepared to go to this length, but Innocent X. 
and Ebermann clearly have the reason of the system on their 
side. If the Divine assistance extended to a Pope depend 
on his "prudence" and use of "historical inquiry," then 
it depends on the degree to which he asserts these quali- 
ties. It depends, too, on the vigor of his intellectual 
faculties, and the extent of his theological learning. To 
affirm such propositions as these, logically involves degrees 
of Divine inspiration, and cuts up the whole theory by the 
roots. Still, Dr. Edward McGlynn, of St. Stephen's 
Church, New York, who is not one of the Catholic ex- 
tremists, says: "It is no part of Catholic faith, it is no 
teaching of Catholic theology, that the Pope, in preaching 
a sermon or writing a theological work, may not commit 
theological blunders, or, for that matter, through ignorance 
or inadvertence, teach heresy, which he himself, upon his 
attention being called to it by a better theologian or 
a more learned private doctor, might, by virtue of his 
Apostolic office, be called upon to condemn, "f But this, 
attempt to clear the subject of its difficulties involves us 
in greater ones. The question arises, whether Pope Inno- 
cent was infallible when he uttered the words quoted 
above. Did he speak "by virtue of the Apostolic office," 
or as "a private doctor? " It will be observed that the 

* Works, III., p. 186. 

+ See an article contributed to the ' 'American Catholic Quarterly 
Review," 'The Bugbear of Vaticanism." 



TRADITION IX THE ROMAN" CATHOLIC CHURCH. 83 

Ultramontane logic here runs in a circle. The Church is 
to listen to the Pope, when he speaks from the chair in- 
fallibly; he speaks from the chair infallibly, when he 
teaches the Universal Church ! Here is one of the great 
defects of the Eoman system as it was left by the Vatican 
Council. There are no indices, or only very indefinite 
ones, by which to determine what utterances of the Pope 
are addressed to the Universal Church, and what are not. 
How shall we be infallibly certain when the Pope speaks 
infallibly? Not until this defect is supplied will the 
Roman system stand forth logically complete, wanting 
nothing. 

There are, then, still some open questions in Catholic 
theology. In addition to those stated above, this one may 
be mentioned: Is the General Council to be dispensed with 
in the future? If the Pope is infallible, there seems to be 
no longer a theoretical necessity for the Council. What 
need of calling together several hundred men from all 
parts of the world, if one alone can infallibly declare the 
truth? It is not probable that the Church will be in haste 
to answer. She can hardly be said ever to be in haste; she 
takes her time. Her policy is to leave large questions open, 
especially when nothing can be gained by answering them. 
Her last step — that of declaring the Pope infallible — is 
really contrary to her traditional policy, for it closes a 
question that had been open for centuries, and that pressed 
for an answer no more at one time than at another. The 
truth is, the Roman Curia, in this matter, overreached it- 
self. Not content with the substance of power, it must 
have the shadow. 

Another open question is the relation of the doctrine of 
tradition to the doctrine of the Church. In a previous 
chapter I have pointed out this relation in the Church of 
antiquity; the claim of authority grew out of the claim of 



84 ECCLESIASTICAL TRADITION. 

tradition. But while it is easy to see that such is the 
original relation of these two ideas — that one is root, the 
other stalk — a single glance will show that considerable 
care is necessary in their statement to keep them from con- 
flicting. It has even been asserted that they necessarily 
antagonize. Dr. Hodge, for example, says: "."Romanists 
admit that tradition would not be a trustworthy informant 
of what Christ and the Apostles taught, without the super- 
natural intervention of God. Tradition is to be trusted, 
not because it comes down through the hands of fallible men. 
but because it comes through an infallibly guided Church." 
The Doctor continues: "This, however, is giving up the 
question. It is merging the authority of tradition into the 
authority of the Church. There is no need of the former, 
if the latter be admitted."* It cannot be denied that 
there is a tendency so to enlarge the sphere of authority as 
to bring it into collision with tradition. But this is not 
necessary. If it be understood that the Church does not 
originate doctrines, that her inspiration goes no further 
than the delivery of doctrines long ago entrusted to her, 
then the two do not antagonize. True, it may be said: 
" If an infallible Church is necessary, why not make it her 
function to originate doctrine as it is needed? Why con- 
fine her to the humbler office of transmitting what she has 
received? Why a tradition at all? and why not a contin- 
uous inspiration?" The only reply is this: "These ques- 
tions pertain to the wisdom of the Divine arrangements; 
it is enough to know that God has not so done." Nor are 
we at liberty to deny the sufficiency of the answer. Now, 
the Catholic Church sometimes holds up an infallible Apos- 
tolical tradition, to be ascertained by historical inquiry 
and human prudence, assisted by the Spirit of God; 
again she holds up the authority of an inspired Church. 

* Systematic Theology, I., pp. 121-2. 



TRADITION IX THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH. 85 

Her utterances cannot be reconciled. The decrees of Trent 
and the Creed of Pius IV. do not speak the same language. 
The decrees put the unwritten traditions, "whether re- 
ceived from Christ himself or dictated by the Holy Spirit," 
on an equality with the Bible. The Creed requires the ac- 
ceptance, not only of the ''Apostolical and ecclesiastical 
traditions," but also "all other constitutions and ob- 
servances of the same Church." No other reason for this 
vacillation can be given than the determination to keep an 
open door for further innovations. The doctrine of an in- 
spired Church is much more favorable to such innova- 
tions in the old discipline than the doctrine of an Apostolic 
tradition. While the Latin Church has professed for the 
last fifteen hundred years to stand on antiquity, she has 
really been changing her ground all the time. Nor is she 
likely to shut herself up either to tradition or to authority, 
in the near future. Still there has been a growing ten- 
dency to emphasize authority. Faithfully carried out,. 
the doctrine of tradition would require a constant exam- 
ination of the old foundations — the constant use of his- 
torical inquiry and human prudence; but as a matter 
of fact, articles of faith have not been thus formulated; 
they have been rested immediately on authority. The Tri- 
dentine decrees were not verified by the Scriptures or by 
the Fathers, but were grounded on the " sacred, holy, 
ecumenical, and general council." The Vatican decree 
concerning infallibility refers to the ancient tradition, but 
finds its strongest assurance of that infallibility in the 
Divine assistance promised in blessed Peter, that is, in the 
Pope's inspiration. Here a new element rises to the sur- 
face — the independent authority of the Pope. His ex- 
cathedra utterances are said to be " irrel'ormable of them- 
selves, and not from the consent of the Church."' The 
effect of this is to give him a locus independenl of the 



86 ECCLESIASTICAL TRADITION. 

consensus of the Church. The result is still further to 
complicate Catholic theology. If it was a delicate task be- 
fore so to state the doctrine of authority that it should 
not conflict with tradition, much more is it so now. In- 
deed, to harmonize an Apostolical tradition, an infallible 
Church, and an inspired Pope, may fairly be pronounced 
an impossibility. 

Some of the peculiar features of the Roman Catholic 
Church find their explanation in her doctrine of tradition. 
One of these is her method of evangelization. What this 
is, can best be shown by contrasting it with the Protestant 
method. The Protestant seeks to convert men by induc- 
ing them to study the teachings of Christ and the Apos- 
tles, by getting their minds to act freely upon the Scriptures, 
by instilling into them the Word of God. This may not 
in all cases be the Protestant theory of conversion, but it 
is the Protestant practice. Accordingly, in all enlightened 
countries the Scriptures are scattered in widest profusion; 
while for those savage nations which have only oral lan- 
guages, alphabets are invented, barbarous dialects are re- 
duced to writing, and the Bible is then translated into them. 
The missionary also preaches the Gospel orally, refer- 
ring to the written Word of God as authority for what 
he preaches. The Roman Church says this is all wrong: 
her principle is, the Church teaching by authority. In 
working it, the priest teaches the infidel a few dogmas 
orally, and authenticates his teaching by referring to 
the Church. Cardinal Wiseman declares, "that all men 
may be admitted at once into the Catholic religion, who 
give up belief in their own individual judgment, and 
adopt the principle that whatever the Catholic Church 
shall teach them must be true."* 



* Doctrines of the Church, I., p. 119. 



TRADITION IX THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH. 87 

Xo place is found for the Bible until the work of con- 
version is completed. The Cardinal says again: "Surely 
the Sacred Volume was never intended, and was not 
adopted, to teach us our creed; however certain it is that 
we can prove our creed from it, when it has once been 
taught us, and in spite of individual producible exceptions 
to the general rule. From the very first, the rule has 
been, as a matter of fact, for the Church to teach the truth, 
and then appeal to the Scripture in vindication of its own 
teaching. "* Dr. J. H. Newman says it is a proposition, 
"self-evident as soon as stated, to those who have at all 
examined the structure of Scripture, namely, that the 
sacred text was never intended to teach doctrine, but only 
to prove it, and that, if we would learn doctrine, we must 
have recourse to the formularies of the Church; for 
instance., to the Catechism and to the Creeds. ? 'f The 
meaning of this is, however intelligent, studious, and 
reverent men may be, they cannot, from the Bible alone, 
find the way of life. Hence the affirmation of "the 
insufficiency of the mere private study of Holy Scripture 
for arriving at the entire truth which it really contains." 
Whoever would see this Eoman method of evangelization 
in operation on a large scale should read the life of Xavier, 
the Apostle of India. It is asserted that he, 'Mike the 
Apostles, converted and baptized his thousands in one day, 
who remained steadfast in the faith and law of Christ." 
What Xavier really did, was to receive the assent of these 
heathen to a few dogmas that they did not understand, to 
receive their submission to the Church, to baptize them, 
and then to leave them, as unconverted in heart and life 
as they were before. 

Another of the peculiar features of the Roman system. 

^Doctrines of the Church, I., p. 124. 
+ Apologia Pro \'it<t Sua, pp. 60-61. 



ECCLESIASTICAL TRADITION. 



growing out of the doctrine of tradition, is the small use 
that the Church has for the Bible in training the believer. 
The Council of Trent practically forbade the exercise of 
private judgment, by denying a man's right to find in 
Scripture a sense contrary to that held by Holy Mother 
Church. It also threw great difficulties in the way of 
printing and circulating the sacred writings.* 

* " Chemintz says Eckius, Eraser, and the first writers against the Reformation, 
did not refuse to argue from Scripture ; but Pighius, finding this detrimental to his 
cause, invented the method of arguing on the insufficiency, obscurity, and ambi- 
guity of Scripture, and the necessity of unwritten tradition, in which he was fol- 
lowed by all the Roman theologians. "—Palmer, Treatise on the Church, I . , p. 28, Note. 

Certain it is that from the time of the Protestant defection, for what- 
ever reason, new prominence was given to tradition, and far more was 
said about the insufficiency of Scripture than had ever been said before. 
Cardinal Wiseman confesses that there was a change of tactics. These 
are his words : " The Scriptures had been diffused among the faithful, 
and would have so continued, had not dangerous doctrines sprung up, 
which taught that men should throw aside all authority, and each one 
judge for himself in religion ; a system which we have seen fraught 
with such dreadful difficulties, that it is no wonder that it should have 
been made a matter of discipline to check, for a time, its perilous diffu- 
sion." — Doctrines of the Chxwch, I. p. 57. 

However it may have been on the Continent, the Bible seems to have 
had free course in England, until the troubles growing out of the Lol- 
lard movement led both State and Church to interfere with its cir- 
culation. See Blunt's " Plain Account of the English Bible," London, 
1870, pp. 26-30 ; also Westcott's " History of the English Bible," London, 
1868, pp. 13-26. Cranmer, writing in 1540, says: "For it is not much 
above one hundred years ago since Scripture hath not been accustomed 
to be read in the vulgar tongue within this realm." 

But as intelligence began to quicken at the dawn of the modern era, 
it became apparent both to the princes of the Church and the princes of 
the State, that the free circulation of the Bible would lead men to chal- 
lenge venerable traditions, both political and ecclesiastical. State and 
Church therefore formed an unholy alliance to keep it out of the way of 
the common people. The Church did not particularly object to the Bible 
so long as it was little read, and the traditional interpretation implicitly 
received. Since the battle between the Bible and tradition was joined, 
she does object, unless a priest stands by to enforce with authority the 
ecclesiastical sense. Its diffusion is considered " perilous." 



TRADITION IN THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH. 8 ( J 

Cardinal Wiseman says: " We give not the word of God 
indiscriminately to all, because God himself has not so 
given it. We do not permit the indiscriminate and undi- 
rected use of the Bible, because God has not given to His 
Church the instinct to do so." The Protestant makes the 
Bible the foundation of the Church. But it has been well 
said: "In Catholic doctrine, the Bible holds no such fun- 
damental place. The Bible is an institution within that 
Church, not a foundation under it. The Church is 
divinely founded and perpetually inspired. It makes no 
pretense of resting upon the Bible. The Bible is a kind 
of history which the Chureh has made of itself, and the 
Church alone is competent to say what the history means, 
is sole sovereign, so to say, over its contents/ 7 * The Prot- 
estant problem is this : Given the Bible to find the 
Church ; the Catholic problem this : Given the Church 
to find the Bible. Catholic doctrines have small con- 
fidence in the mental stability of men. Gregory XII. 
declared: "It is well pleasing to Almighty God, that 
his sacred worship should be performed in an unknown 
tongue, in order that the whole world, and especially 
the most simple, may nor be able to understand it." 
Gregory the Great said, "Ignorance is the mother of 
devotion." Great- are the fears that, if the individual 
soul is shut up to the Bible, it will go wrong. Protestants 
are accustomed to say that the reason why Eome lays so 
little stress on the Bible, is that the Bible condemns her 
peculiar practices. All that I am particular to point out 
is this, her neglect of Scripture springs naturally from the 
genius of her system. To put tradition on a level with 
Scripture, and to teach that the Church is inspired, neces- 
sarily throws the Bible into the background. It is always 
easier to go to an inspired teacher for truth, than it is to 



* The Methodist, Nov. 20, 1875. 



90 ECCLESIASTICAL TRADITIOX. 

find it for yourself. What need, therefore, of sending 
men to the two Testaments, so long as the Church teaches 
with authority?* 

It is claimed for the Roman method of teaching religion, 

* The attitude of the Roman Catholic Church to the Bible, was once 
summed up by Dr. Philip Schaff, in the following calm and able man- 
ner, in a communication to the Independent: 

The charge is often brought against the Roman Catholic Church that she is hos- 
tile to the Holy Scriptures and would destroy them, if she could. In this unquali- 
fied form the charge is a slander ; if confined to Protestant Bibles, it is true. 

The Roman Catholic Church has never opposed the original Hebrew and Greek 
Scriptures ; but declared them to be divinely inspired, and, together with the tra- 
ditions of an infallible Church culminating in an infallible Pope, the supreme rule 
in all matters of faith and morals. From this position she can never recede with- 
out giving up her claim to infallibility — i. e,, giving up herself. She has, more- 
over, never opposed the Latin Vulgate of Jerome ; but raised it to an undeserved 
equality with the original Scriptures. She allows, also, but does not encourage, the 
circulation of those vernacular translations which she herself approves as correct. 
Such translations exist in all the modern languages of Europe, and can be freely 
bought in any respectable Catholic bookstore. But the position of the Roman Cath- 
olic Church in regard to the indiscriminate circulation of the Bible, in any form, 
and as regards all Protestant versions, is very different . The facts in the case may 
be reduced to the following points : 

1 . Several Popes before and even after the Reformation, especially Innocent III. 
(ob. 1216) and Clement XL, in the Bulla Unigenitus (1713), have not, indeed, abso- 
lutelyprohibited, but, at least, restricted and discouraged the reading of the Bible 
in the vernacular tongues. 

2. Pius VII. (1816), Leo XII. (1824), Gregory XVI. (1832), and Pius IX., have 
anathematized the Protestant Bible societies and denounced the spread of Protest- 
ant Bibles . The Papal Syllabus of 1864 (§ iv.) classes Bible societies (Societates Bibli- 
cace) with socialism, communism, secret societies, and calls them " pests," which 
had often been most severely reproved in papal encyclicals. 

3. The "Index Librorum Pro'hibitwum,'''' as issued by Pius IV., allows the use of 
the (Catholic) translations only on condition of a special permission of the priest. 

4. It is perfectly consistent with the Romish view on the obscurity of the Scrip- 
tures, as well as with the hierarchical spirit, to place very little value on the read- 
ing of the Bible, and to refer the laity to the living teaching of the priesthood . The 
reading of the Bible is not regarded as necessary by the Roman Church ; but only 
as useful within certain limits, and as positively hurtful if left free to all. 

5 . The wholesale destruction of Protestant translations of the Bible was an es- 
sential and prominent part of the Jesuitical counter-reformation in Bohemia, Po- 
land, Hungary, and other countries. Bohemian and Polish Bibles were burned bv 
the thousands during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, so that copies wen- 
very rare . One Jesuit (Koniash, died about 1617) boasted that he had burned over 
€0,000 Bohemian books. The whole Czech and Polish literature was destroyed by 
the Jesuits. 



TRADITION" I*f THE ROMAN" CATHOLIC CHURCH. 91 

that it is the method of the Apostles, that it is the one 
used in the great national conversions from the fifth 
century onward, and that in recent times it has been far 
more successful that the Protestant method. Concerning 
the last claim, it may be said, the success of Roman mis- 
sions is far more apparent than real. .Rome has rather 
lowered Christianity to the barbarian's level, than lifted 
him to its level. She has been much more successful in 
instilling into him the authority of the Church, than the 
teaching of the Gospel. It must be admitted chat the 
second claim is, in great degree, true. In the time of the 
national conversions, men and nations came into the 
Church first, and wore out their heathenism afterwards. 
This fact goes very far towards accounting for that bar- 
barizing of the Church which is so conspicuous a feature 
of the Middle Ages. Once more, the Apostles did use an 
oral method; they also appealed to authority. Not, how- 
ever, to the authority of the Church, but to the authority 
of God. They also constantly employed such Scriptures 
as had then been written. And then it may be asked, was 
the oral character of the primitive tradition an essential 
characteristic, or only an accidental feature? For the 
present, the answer to this question is postponed. 

Two other peculiarities of the Roman system may be ex- 
plained in the same way : the acceptance of the Hebrew 
Apocrypha as canonical, and the substitution of the 
Vulgate version for the Hebrew and Greek originals. 
The Apocrypha was received by the Council of Trent, appa- 
rently because it was found in the Vulgate. Jerome, the 
original author of that version, did not put the Apocry- 
phal books on a level with the other books. Probably the 
prevailing ignorance of Hebrew and Greek, on the part of 
the clergy, had much to do with the substitution of the 
Vulgate in place of the originals. It was #lso argued, 



92 ECCLESIASTICAL TRADITION. 

that, in the midst of so many varying versions, there was 
need of some one authoritative standard. The fact that 
the Vulgate had been long used in the Church, that it had 
become a part of the Church tradition, was undoubtedly a 
principal reason for making it the standard authority. 

The Catholic niethod of authenticating Scripture springs 
from the same root, but the discussion of this topic is re- 
served for another place. 



NOTE. 

THE INFALLIBILITY DOGMA. 

The evolution of this dogma is one of the most interest- 
ing questions in ecclesiastical history. No man can compass 
it without a penetrating insight into human nature, and 
a vast knowledge of secular and religious history from the 
time of the Apostles to the present day. To hear one-half 
or more of the Christian world calling a foolish, old priest 
infallible, is, from one point of view, astounding; but when 
we follow, historically, the long path that led the Catholic 
world to the Vatican Basilica in 1869, wonder vanishes, if 
not surprise. In an article entitled, "The Logic of 
Roman Catholicism," contributed to the "Christian Quar- 
terly," Vol. VII., the author attempted a summary view 
of this difficult subject. This view, somewhat reduced, 
is here presented: 

1. The Church, as an historical body, held itself infalli- 
ble in faith and morals. This idea, in a mild form, 
got afloat in the second century, and, long before the 
Council of Nice sat, it was generally received. Nor can 
it be claimed that the doctrine of an infallible Church 
makes as large a demand on credulity as the doctrine 
of an infallible Pope. Great bodies have a steadiness 
that does not belong to single individuals. "Bobus" 
Smith wittily s^id, "The House of Commons knows 
more than any man in it.'' And we can see how a vast 
community, like the Church, might hold on the even 



94 ECCLESIASTICAL TRADITION. ■ 

tenor of its way, holding in its embrace the primitive 
doctrine, when single persons, and even groups of per- 
sons, lapsed from the truth. Nor were the roots of this 
doctrine altogether in the air; the Church teachers claimed 
that they were firmly planted in the Scriptures. No 
Protestant believes that Christ taught the inspiration of 
the Church, or that the decisions of the Church should be 
as indefectible as those of God. Rightly interpreted, the 
so-called infallibility passages do not teach infallibility. 
At the same time, however, we can readily understand 
how infallibility was found in them. The Church was be- 
coming a great communion, affording an ample field for 
clerical ambition; the times were stormy, almost forcing 
upon the Church a stronger organization, certainly making 
an excuse for it; constant attacks from without called for 
unity within, and engendered the pretense of unity when 
it did not exist; the Church became more and more as- 
similated to the State, and finally entered into close 
alliance with it. An assumed uniformity of teaching- 
seemed to the great ecclesiastics a sort of logical necessity; 
while the widening historical back-ground, for the Church 
now began to have an antiquity, furnished an object for 
superstitious affection. What wonder, therefore, that this 
growing power, in an age of gathering darkness, came to 
believe that it was infallible? 

2. It was believed that infallibility must be sought in 
the consensus of the Church. This was the only natural 
view to take of the matter. Individual teachers might 
err, and whole communities might, fall into heresy; but 
what the Church Universal taught and practiced could not 
be false. To get at infallibility, it did not suffice to scan 
a narrow field, or to consider only a moment of time, to 
follow this or that teacher, or to listen to the cry loudest 



THE INFALLIBILITY DOGMA. 05 

at the moment — you must get the consensus of the Church, 
the general consent both of the present and the past. 

3. The consensus of the Church must in some way voice 
itself; infallibility must have an organ of expression and 
communication. Of what service would it be floating in 
the air? Who could utilize it so long as it reposed in a 
thousand writings, or was voiced by ten thousand pulpits?" 
Besides, who could undertake the labor, and who could 
risk the uncertainty, of gathering the consensus from so 
many oracles? We cannot see unless the rays of light are 
focalized; and unless the teaching of the Church could 
somewhere be authoritatively stated, the Church might as 
well not be infallible. The want of an organ must have 
been generally felt; rather it would have been, if it had 
not been provided so soon as it was called for. Side by 
side with the expansion of the Church had been the expan- 
sion of the teaching and ruling body. By the opening of 
the third century, there was a hierarchy. Bishops and 
presbyters had become separate orders. The abler and 
more aspiring of the presbyters had partly clutched, and 
hud partly thrust upon them, episcopal rank and powers; 
they wore now pastors of pastors; they were accounted 
successors of the Apostles; they were the men who had the 
widest knowledge of the doctrine and traditions of the 
Church. How natural it was, therefore, that the bishops 
collectively should be regarded the mouth-piece of the in- 
spired society; and, as the bishops spoke collectively only 
in the Ecumenical Council, that convocation was the 
focal point of infallibility. 

4. The Bishop of Rome came to bean adjunct of the 
Council in making known the consensus of the Church. 
How this came about, must be briefly traced. Purely 
human causes gave the Bishop of the Imperial City 
preeminence over his episcopal brethren, llv was first 



90 ECCLESIASTICAL TKADITION. 

among equals (primus inter pares): then lie denied that he 
had any equals and asserted that he was a universal 
monarch. While he was mounting upward, the idea of the 
primacy was invented in his interest. Theologians read 
in their Testaments: " On this rock [held to be Peter] 
will I build my Church" (Matt, xvi: 18); " Jesus saith 
to Simon Peter, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me more 
than these? He saith unto him, Yea Lord, thou knowest 
that I love thee. He saith unto him, Feed my lambs." 
(John xxi: 15); and on the pretended authority of these 
texts, and one or two others like them, Peter was declared 
Prince of the Apostles, and Head of the Church, while the 
doctrine of the episcopal succession was so expanded as to 
make the Bishop of Rome Peter's successor. Other 
bishops could claim no more than a general succession; 
the Roman Bishop's succession was particular. Circum- 
stances favored the Roman See more and more. The 
Church was sweeping out into the darkness and the wild- 
ness of the Middle Ages, and the ecclesiastical politicians 
who directed her fortunes thought an absolute will was 
essential to discipline. We see clearly that there is no 
Pope in the above texts; but we see also that, since the 
doctrines of tradition, of Church infallibility, and of 
Apostolical succession had become established, and since 
the Roman Bishop had become the head of the hierarchy, 
the Roman interpretation was not unnatural. 

The idea of an infallible church is older by many centu- 
ries than the idea of an infallible Pope. The Church 
believed herself inerrant long before she bowed her neck 
to the Roman Bishop. At first no one thought him 
infallible, or considered him a necessary adjunct of the 
Council; even after he had become the head of the hier- 
archy, no one considered him a necessary factor in defining 
dogmas of faith; he did not call the earliest councils, nor 



THE INFALLIBILITY DOGMA. 97 

preside over them in person or by legate; he was always 
listened to with respect, as a powerful ecclesiastic, but his 
word was not a finality; hence his approval of conciliar 
decrees was thought desirable, but not necessary. But as 
time wore on, as the Roman Bishop grew in power, as the 
East separated from the West, leaving the Western pontiff 
more absolute than ever on his own side of the dividing 
line, the Pope began to play a very important, and even 
controlling, part in the affairs of councils. Now, he must 
convoke, or unite with the Emperor in convoking, them. 
The presidency belonged to him. The decrees were not 
thought binding unless he approved them. As it would 
be contrary to the genins of the Roman race, and to the 
doctrine of tradition, to do what had never been done, the 
fiction was invented that the Popes had always exercised 
these powers; it followed that the consensus of the Church 
was mute without the Pope's cooperation in voicing it. 
Still he was not held to be personally infallible, until an- 
other step had been taken. 

5. The one remaining step was taken when the Vatican 
Council, July 18, 1870, with the approval of the Pope, 
proclaimed the Pope infallible. 

This proclamation calls for two remarks: first, it was 
made by a council called in the usual way, and proceeding 
according to tjie usual forms. The Old Catholics deny 
this, declaring that the Vatican Council is no council; 
but no good reason can be given why a man who was 
a loyal Catholic up to the sitting of this Council, should 
afterward turn back, unless prepared to retrace his 
steps many hundred years; for, second, this definition is 
the culmination of a series of events that began in the 
second century. It is the legitimate and inevitable con- 
clusion of the Catholic logic. It is true enough, as 
Old Catholics charge, that the Pope dictated to the 

G 



98 ECCLESIASTICAL TRADITION". 

Council, but the Catholic logic put him in a position 
where he could thus dictate. As we have seen, it belonged 
to the Pope to convoke councils and to approve their 
decrees. Hence, when a council thus convoked declares 
the Pope infallible, and the Pope approves the decree, the 
two thus uniting in declaring that papal infallibility is 
contained in the consensus of the Church, what logical 
ground is there for resistance, unless the whole system of 
Popes and Councils is swept away, and Church infallibility 
denied? 

I may add, the logical weakness of the Old Catholic 
movement is one great cause of its want of success thus 
far. 



CHAPTER III, 



TKADITION IN THE ANGLICAN" CHUKCH. 

The Anglican Church holds the doctrine- of tradition in 
a way that admirably harmonizes with her whole system, 
both doctrinal and ecclesiastical; nothing extreme, but the 
via media. In the "Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity/' the 
learned and judicious Hooker argues that Catholics 
and Puritans were equally at fault on this subject. He 
says: "Whatsoever to make up the doctrine of man's 
salvation is added, as in supply of the Scripture's insuf- 
ficiency, we reject if. Scripture purposing this, hath 
perfectly and fully done it." That is, Hooker pronounces 
against the Catholic doctrine that tradition contains Divine 
knowledge essential to salvation, that is not found in 
Scripture. He now turns to the Puritans, arguing, against 
them, that the Church has authority in rites and cere- 
monies, or in matters that are indifferent to salvation. 
He charges them with "racking and stretching" Holy 
Scripture when they hold that all rites and ceremonies 
used in worship must be found therein. He says: "As 
incredible praises given unto men do often abate and 
impair the credit of their deserved commendation; so we 
must likewise take great heed, lest in attributing unto 
Scripture more than it can have, the incredibility of that 
do cause even those things which indeed it hath most 



100 ECCLESIASTICAL TRADITION. 

abundantly to be less reverently esteemed."* According 
to Hooker, while Catholics make too little, pronounced 
Protestants make too much, of the Bible. In this he is 
perfectly true to the spirit of the Establishment, as I 
hasten to show. 

The material part of the sixth Article of the English 
Church is in these words: 

" Holy Scripture containeth all things necessary to salvation: so that 
whatsoever is not read therein, nor may be proved thereby, is not to be 
required of any man, that it should be believed as an article of the faith, 
or be thought requisite or necessary to salvation." 

The twentieth Article runs thus: 

" The Church hath power to decree rites or ceremonies, and authority 
in controversies of faith : and yet it is not lawful for the Church to 
ordain anything that is contrary to God's word written, neither may it 
so expound one place of Scripture that it be repugnant to another. 
Wherefore, although the Church be a witness and a keeper of Holy Writ, 
yet, as it ought not to decree anything against the same, so besides the 
same ought it not to enforce anything to be believed for necessity of 
salvation. " 

Article thirty-four is in part as follows: 

" It is not necessary that traditions and ceremonies be in all places 
one, or utterly like; for at all times they have been divers, and may be 
changed according to the diversity of countries, times, and men's man- 
ners, so that nothing be ordained against God's Word. * * * Every 
particular or national Church hath authority to ordain, change, and 
abolish, ceremonies or rites of the Church, ordained only by man's 
authority, so that all things be done to edifying." 

One of the canons passed by the Convocation of 1571, 
the convocation that put the Articles in their present form, 
contains this clause: 

" In the first place, let preachers take heed that they deliver nothing 
from the pulpit to be religiously held and believed by the people, but 
that which is agreeable to the Old and New Testament, and such as the 
catholic Fathers and ancient bishops have collected therefrom." 

These quotations define the legal status of tradition in 
the English Church. Within their limits they include, as 

* Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity, II. viii : 5 and 7. 



TKADITION IIS" THE ANGLICAN CHUKCH. 101 

they were no doubt intended to include, a wide divergence 
of views. It is clear that, in framing her legal formularies, 
she was guided by the principle of "comprehension." In 
fact, no other communion comprehends so great a variety 
of elements. Her history justifies the famous description 
of Lord Chatham, " Oalvinistic articles, a Popish ritual, 
and an Arminian clergy." At the present day, her Arti- 
cles and canons give ample room for the three parties into 
which the establishment is divided, High Church, Broad 
Church, and Low Church. These parties, especially High 
Churchmen and Low Churchmen, hold very different views 
of tradition and Church authority. To set these views down 
in detail, is foreign to the purpose of this essay. Nothing 
more is called for than to state the principal opinions on 
this subject held by the majority of Church-of-England 
divines. As the Anglican Church professes to walk 
the via media between Catholicism and pronounced Prot- 
estantism, so there is a via media within her own com- 
munion. I shall seek to walk along this path, simply 
noting when the principal divergent roads take off to the 
right and left. 

1. The Scriptures are an all sufficient rule of religious 
faith. Nothing is enjoined as of faith that is not read 
therein, nor can be proved thereby. More definitely, the 
Anglican position is thus stated by Dr. Harold Browne, 
Bishop of Ely: 

"The Church of England then holds, in conformity with the Church 
of old, that Scripture is absolutely perfect in relation to the end to 
which it tends, namely, the teaching us all things necessary to salvation. 
She denies the existence and rejects the authority of any parallel and 
equal tradition, of any doctrines necessary to salvation, handed down 
from generation to generation. But it is not true that the Church of 
England rejects the proper use of tradition, though she will not suffer it 
to be unduly exalted. She does not neglect the testimony of antiquity, 
and cut herself off from the communion of the Saints of old."* 



Eooposition of the Articles, p. 182. 



102 ECCLESIASTICAL TRADITION. 

2. Tradition confirms Scripture. This it does by wit- 
nessing to the Sacred Books, by teaching the same great 
doctrines, and by supporting some doctrines that are more 
a matter of inference from Scripture than of expressed 
verbal teaching. The latter point is thus argued by 
Bishop Patrick: 

" We allow that tradition gives us a considerable assistance in such 
points as are not in so many letters and syllables contained in the Scrip- 
tures, but may be gathered from thence by good and manifest reasoning. 
Or, in plainer words, perhaps, whatsoever tradition justifies any doc- 
trine that may be proved by the Scriptures, though not found in express 
terms there, we acknowledge to be of great use, and readily receive and 
follow it, as serving very much to establish us more firmly in that truth, 
when we see all Christians have adhered to it. This may be called a 
confirming tradition: of which we have an instance in infant baptism, 
which some ancient Fathers call an Apostolical tradition."* 

3. Tradition is of great value in interpreting Scripture. 
Anglicans firmly hold the hermneutical tradition. Hence, 
preachers are enjoined "to take heed that they deliver 
nothing from the pulpit to be religiously held and believed 
by the people, but that which is agreeable to the Old and 
New Testaments, and such as the Catholic .Fathers and 
ancient bishops have collected therefrom" Bishop Patrick 
says: "We look on this tradition as nothing else but the 
Scripture unfolded: not a new thing, but the Scripture 
explained and made more evident." Cranmer writes: "I 
also grant that every exposition of the Scripture wherein- 
soever the old, holy, and true Church did agree, is neces- 
sary to be believed." Anglicans hold with St. Vincent. 
Tradition is the measure of the meaning of the Word of 
God; antiquity is a "note" of the Church. The Bishop 
of Ely argues further: 

" Truth is one, but error is multiform; and we know that in process 
of time new doctrines constantly sprang up in the Church, and by de- 
grees gained footing and took root. We believe, therefore, that if we 
can learn what was the constant teaching of the primitive Christians, we 

* Quoted by the Bishop of Ely, Exposition, p. 187. 



TEADITION" IN THE ANGLICAN" CHURCH. 103 

shall be most likely to find the true sense of Scripture preserved in that 
teaching , and wherever we can trace the first rise of a doctrine, and 
so stamp it with novelty, the proof of its novelty will be the proof of its 
falsehood ; for what could find no place among the earliest churches of 
Christ, can scarcely have come from the Apostles of Christ, or from a 
right interpretation of the Scriptures which they wrote."* « 

The Anglican Church holds with Tertullian, " What is 
first, is true; what is later, adulterate." 

4. The Church has authority in controversies of faith, 
limited by God's written Word. But in such controversies 
she is not to interpiet Scripture otherwise than the Church 
catholic. To prove that "universal tradition, as deter- 
mining the meaning of Scripture must be true, and there- 
fore a safe guide in controversies of faith," Palmer reasons 
as follows : 

"If, then, any given doctrine was universally believed by those 
Christians who had been instructed by the Apostles ; if this doctrine was 
received by all succeeding generations as sacred and divine, and strictly 
conformable to those Scriptures which were read and expounded in 
every church; this belief, one and uniform, received in all churches, 
delivered through all ages, triumphing over the novel and contradicting 
doctrines which attempted to pollute it, guarded with jealous care, even 
to the sacrifice of life in its defense, and after a lapse of eighteen hun- 
dred years believed as firmly by the overwhelming mass of Christians 
among all nations, as when it was first promulgated; such a doctrine 
must be a truth of revelation. It rests on evidence not inferior to that 
which attests the truth of Christianity. Is it possible that the infinite 
majority of Christians in all ages can have mistaken or adulterated 
their own religion, a religion which they held to be divine, and on which 
they believed their salvation to depend? "+ 

5. "The Church hath power to decree rites or cere- 
monies." This does not mean that the Church can create 
ordinances or sacraments; the "rites" and "ceremonies" 
that she may "decree" are defined to be things compara- 
tively indifferent in themselves, the adjuncts and acci- 
dents, not the essence and substance of holy things. The 



* Exposition, p. 183. 

+ Treatise of the Church of Christ, II., p. 47. 



104 ECCLESIASTICAL TRADITION". 

ritual used in public worship, the vestments of priests, 
and rules for administering the affairs of the Church, may 
serve as examples. The Church must attend to these, 
since the Bible does not regulate them, that all things 
may be done decently and in order. 

Thoroughly to examine these several propositions, is no 
part of my purpose. But divines who reason like the 
Bishop of Ely and Dr. Palmer, may fairly be called on to 
answer such questions as these: " If the universal tradition 
must be true, how shall it be ascertained?" "If the 
Church hath authority in controversies of faith, how is 
this authority asserted?" To these questions the Catho- 
lic returns definite answers. His theory is complete, and his 
ecclesiastical machinery is fully adequate to do the work 
for which it is constructed. He points to recognized 
organs whose functions are to declare tradition and assert 
authority. But the Anglican either says nothing, or he 
makes some common-place remarks that do not reach the 
difficulty. In fact, the logic of the Anglican system hope- 
lessly breaks down at this point. The Church has au- 
thority in controversies of faith, but no effectual way of 
asserting it has been provided. While he still sat in the 
Tractarian saddle, Dr. J. H. Newman pointed out this 
weakness as well as some others, in the Articles, in the fol- 
lowing incisive paragraph: 

" They are evidently framed on the principle of leaving open large 
questions on which the controversy hinges. They state broadly extreme 
truths, and are silent about their adjustment. For instance, they say 
that all necessary faith must be proved from Scripture; but do not say 
who is to prove it. They say that the Church has authority in contro- 
versies; but do not say what authority. They say that it may enforce 
nothing beyond Scripture ; but do not say where the remedy lies when it 
does. They say that works before grace and justification are worthless 
and worse, and that works after grace and justification are acceptable; 
but they do not speak at all of works with God's aid before justification. 
They say that men are lawfully called and sent to minister and preach, 
who are chosen and called by men who have public authority given 



TRADITION" IN THE ANGLICAN" CHURCH. 105 

them in the congregation ; but they do not add by whom the authority- 
is to be given. They say that councils called by princes may err ; they 
do not determine whether councils called in the name of Christ may 
err."* 

Perhaps it is unnecessary to add, that the only effectual 
way to work the doctrines of tradition and Church au- 
thority is, to assert the inspiration of the Church, and pro- 
vide some recognized organ of communication. But 
Anglicans are cut off from this road out of the difficulty, 
since they hold that the Scriptures promise to the Church 
no more than a general indefectibility, not a special and 
particular infallibility. 

But, again, antiquity is a note of the Church. Un- 
doubtedly this is true of the earliest antiquity. But if 
authority is to be assigned to any other antiquity than 
that found in the New Testament, it is pertinent to in- 
quire : "How long did it last? What things are first, and 
what things later? Besides, what authority is to deter- 
mine the limits of this antiquity?" The Anglican Articles 
contain no answers, and practically each man is left to 
bound antiquity for himself. The via-media divines in- 
clude in their antiquity the first five or six centuries; but 
this is wholly arbitrary. What is more, the germs of what 
they call the " Romish corruptions," some of them in a 
high state of development, are all found in their antiquity. 

Still again, the Anglican system contains ant&gonistical 
principles. Private judgment is to be exercised, but only 
as limited by the authority of the Church. " Holy Scrip- 
ture containeth all things necessary to salvation," and 
at the same time " the Church hath authority in contro- 
versies of faith." Each of these principles has borne abun- 
dant fruit of its own kind. Those who emphasize Scripture 
pay little attention to tradition; those who emphasize the 
authority of the Church hold that tradition is entitled to 

* Apologia pro Sua Vit<<, p. 129. 



106 ECCLESIASTICAL TEADITION". 

great respect, some making it almost co-ordinate with the 
Bible. 

Numerous side roads branch off from the via media. 
The Low-Church, or Evangelical, doctors have the least 
possible amount of tradition in their religion; they go at 
once to the Bible, and desire to be on friendly terms with 
the Protestant sects. The High-Church doctors are loud 
in their praises of antiquity, and lean towards Kome. The 
former approve, the latter disapprove, Chillingworth's 
rule: "The Bible, and the Bible alone, is the religion of 
Protestants." These two parties differ widely and accri- 
moniously as to the extent of Church authority. Nor do 
Anglicans agree concerning the sources of doctrines and 
ordinances that they accept in common. Some say there 
is no warrant for sprinkling, and they accordingly rest it 
on tradition; others say it is found in Scripture and con- 
firmed by tradition. Some, finding in Scripture small 
trace of infant baptism, or none, rest it on tradition; others 
find this practice in Scripture, but welcome the confirma- 
tion of antiquity. Similar differences of opinion prevail 
in regard to the episcopacy, Some authenticate the books 
of the New Testament by historical testimony; others re- 
ceive them on authority after the Koman fashion. 



CHAPTER IV. 






TRADITION IN THE PROTESTANT CHURCHES. 

The proper Protestant position respecting tradition is 
thus stated by Hagenbach, in his " History of Doctrines" : 

"From the commencement of the Reformation, it became evident, 
in the course of the struggle, that its adherents proceeded upon a differ- 
ent formal principle (as to the source of knowledge, and rule of faith), 
from that held by the Roman Church of that period. For while the ad- 
vocates of the Roman Church continually appealed to the authority of 
tradition, the Protestants refused to yield to any arguments but those 
clearly drawn from Scripture."* 

The assertion of this new formal principle is the 
most important fact in the history of the Church for a 
thousand years. Whether Protestants have fully appre- 
hended it, whether they have been true to it, will appear 
as we go on; certainly it has been so fully and strongly 
grasped as to constitute the characteristic feature of Prot- 
estantism. Let us first look into the mind of Luther, to 
see how the principle was there developed. 

The history of Protestantism may be said to begin with 
Luther's conclusions respecting the doctrine of justifica- 
tion. By degrees and through fierce struggles, he came 
to hold that this is by faith alone. From this proposition 
it was but a step to the next one — the Scriptures are the 

*Vol. II., p. 229, 30. 



108 ECCLESIASTICAL TEADITIOK. 

Eule of Faith. ' Brushing aside penances and indulgences 
as works of the flesh, .without faith and contrary to 
faith, he saw that everything essential to faith is contained 
in the Bible. Hence Hagenbach well says that Luther 
"came to the formal principle by means of the mate- 
rial principle." That is. his own spiritual experience 
led him to rest on faith, and then his inquiry for the basis 
of faith led him to the Word of God. Accordingly, the 
Eeformation did not begin with a new formal principle : 
that principle was a second step in the line of progress. 

The new principle shaped itself slowly in Luther's mind, 
and, in fact, never became clearly defined to him. He 
began his work in 1517, by opposing Tetzel, who was then 
hawking the Pope's indulgences through Germany. He 
warned the people at the confessional and from the pulpit 
to have nothing to do with the indulgences. He wrote to 
the Bishops of Brandenburg and Merseburg, and to the 
Archbishop of Mayence, asking them to put a stop to 
Tetzel* s traffic. At this time he had clearly wrought out 
in his mind the new doctrine of justification. Re- 
ceiving no encouragement from the bishops, but rather 
discouragement, he determined to make a direct appeal to 
the people. Accordingly, Oct. 31, 1517, he posted his 
famous Theses on the Wittenberg church door, protesting 
at the same time that he was not so presumptuous as to 
prefer his own opinion to the opinion of all; but also de- 
claring that he was not so thoughtless as to put the Divine 
Word below fables of human, invention. The following 
year he sent the Theses to the Bishop of Brandenburg, af- 
firming that he wrote them not dogmatically, but for dis- 
cussion after the manner of the schools. Later, he made the 
same declaration to the Pope himself. He denied that his 
Theses contained anything "contrary to the Scriptures, the 
Councils, and the Fathers." In his conference with Urban 



TRADITION" IN" THE PROTESTANT CHURCHES. 109 

the orator, lie said : "If I can be convinced that I have 
said anything in conflict with the understanding of the 
Holy Roman Church, I will at once condemn it, and re- 
tract it." At Augsburg, before Cajetan, he refused to 
withdraw without argument what he had written; but said 
he would submit to the Roman Chair. Later still he of- 
fered to accept any German bishop as his judge. The 
Pope having pronounced against him, Luther appealed to 
a General Council, declaring at the same time that he did 
not intend "to depart from the sentiments of the Church"" 
or "to doubt the primacy and auchority of the Roman See." 
He renewed his appeal to a council time and again, only 
to be refused. Rome had not the courage to submit the 
question. At Leipzig he declared that no Christian could be 
forced to bind himself to accept aught but the Holy Scrip- 
tures, which alone have Divine right. Hagenbach thus 
traces the growth of the Protestant principle in Luther's 
mind : "Contending against the false doctrine of justifica- 
tion as seen in the sale of indulgences, he first of all ap- 
pealed to the Pope; then from the Pope ill informed to the 
Pope better informed; then to a council; until at last he 
recognized the authority of Scripture as alone decisive; and 
elevated this to the rank of a formal principle." In the 
Resolutiones, put forth in 1518, he rose above the authority 
of Councils. But Luther's appeal to the Bible, in opposi- 
tion to ecclesiastical tradition, as well as the moral sublime 
in his life, culminated at Worms, in 1521. In the mem- 
orable Diet, in the presence of the notables of the Holy 
Roman Empire, the princes both of the State and of the 
Church, the Papal Legate, and of the Emperor himself, he 
defended his previous course in a long German speech, 
which he also repeated in Latin for the convenience of the 
foreign princes, answering at the close the question whether 
he would recant, in these words : "Not unless I shall be 



110 ECCLESIASTICAL TBADITION. 

convinced by the testimonies of the Scriptures or by evi- 
dent reason (for I believe neither Pope nor councils alone, 
since it is manifest that they have often erred and 
contradicted themselves). I am bound by the Scriptures 
that I have quoted, and my conscience is held captive by 
the Word of God; and as it is neither safe nor right to act 
against conscience, I cannot, and will not, retract anything. 
Here I stand, I cannot do otherwise, God help me." But 
long after this Luther professed to respect the authority of 
the Church, and continued his calls for a council. These 
calls were in the interest of peace and unity. The conser- 
vative quality of Luther's mind constantly appears through- 
out the controversy with Rome. Even after the breach 
had become irreparable, the Protestants declared them- 
selves ready to treat, and they actually sent representatives 
to Trent, where they were refused admission. 

The Swiss reformer Zwingle freed himself from the 
meshes of tradition much more rapidly and much more ef- 
fectually than Luther. These are his words : 

"In fine, that we may stop having to give an answer to everybody 
about all sorts of objections, this is our view: that the Word of God 
must be held by us in the highest esteem (by Word of God meaning only 
what comes from the Spirit of God), and that to no word should be given 
such faith as to that. For this Word is certain, cannot fail; it is clear, 
and will not let us wander in darkness ; it teaches itself, expounds itself, 
and makes the human soul to shine with all salvation and grace."* 

And still more explicitly : "The Holy Scriptures ought 

to be leader and teacher, which if any one uses rightly he 

ought to be unpunished although he greatly displease the 

overlearned. " The other Reformers followed in the path 

that Luther had struck out. Calvin, for example, says : 

"If true religion is to beam upon us, our principle must be, that it is 
necessary to begin with heavenly teaching, and that it is impossible for 
any man to obtain even the minutest portion of right and sound doctrine 

*Hagenbach, II., p. 231. 






TRADITION IN" THE PROTESTANT CHURCHES. Ill 

without being a disciple of Scripture. Hence the first step in true knowl- 
edge is taken, when we reverently embrace the testimony which God 
has been pleased therein to give of himself. "* 

But it is time to inquire how the Protestants handled 
the new principle in their confessions and creeds. 

As a class, the Lutheran symbols do not contain a sepa- 
rate article on the Scriptures, but they occasionally de- 
nounce tradition. What Cardinal Wiseman calls "the 
great trenching difference" between Catholics and Protest- 
ants was gradually recognized. The Articles of Smalcald, 
drawn up by Luther in 1536, contain this language : "Ar- 
ticles of faith must not be constructed from the words 
and deeds of the Fathers. We have another rule, that the 
Word of God gives articles of faith and no one else, not 
even an angel." The Form of Concord, a Lutheran sym- 
bol of 1577, contains these words : "We believe, confess, 
and teach that the only rule and norm, according to which 
all dogmas and all doctrines ought to be esteemed and 
judged, is no other whatever than the Prophetic and 
Apostolic writings, both of the Old and of the New Testa- 
ment. * * * But other writings, whether of 
the Fathers or of the moderns, with whatever name they 
come, are in no wise to be equalled to the Holy Scripture." 
This language is both affirmative and negative; it is an af- 
firmation of the sufficiency of Scripture, and a denial of 
the claim of Tradition. Generally, the Calvinistic symbols 
are more specific than the Lutheran, often beginning with 
an article on the authority of Scripture. Thus the Hel- 
vetic Confession, 1536 : "Canonical Scripture, the word of 
God delivered by the Holy Spirit, the most perfect and 
most ancient philosophy of all, alone contains in perfection 
all piety, all reason of life." The second Helvetic, 1566 : 

"In Holy Scripture the Universal Church of Christ has the fullest ex- 
positions, whatever pertains both to saving faith and to a life pleasing to 

* Institutes, I., vi, 2. 



112 ECCLESIASTICAL TRADITION. 

God. * * * We acknowledge no judge of faith other than 
G-od Himself, pronouncing through the Holy Scriptures what is true, 
what false, what must be followed, and what must be escaped. * * 
* We refuse to accept human traditions which, though marked by- 
plausible titles, as if they were Divine and Apostolic, and handed down 
by the living voice of the Apostles, and as it were through the hands of 
Apostolic men to the succeeding bishops of the Church, nevertheless when 
placed side by side with the Scriptures differ from them and show by 
tbeir obvious difference that t^iey were by no means Apostolic. For just 
as the Apostles did not teach opposing doctrines, so also the Apostolic 
men did not put forth things that were opposed to the Apostles. Nay, 
even it would be impious to affirm that the Apostles handed down with 
the living voice things contrary to their own writings." 

The Gallic Confession of the year 1559, also a Calvinistic 
symbol: " We believe that the Word contained in these 
books has proceeded from God and receives its authority 
from Him alone and not from men. And inasmuch as it 
is the rule of all truth, containing all that is necessary for 
the service of God and for our salvation, it is not lawful 
for men, nor even for angels, to acid to it, to take away 
from it, or to change it. Whence it follows that no au- 
thority, whether of antiquity, or custom, or numbers, or 
human wisdom, or judgments, or proclamations, or edicts, 
or decrees, or councils, or visions, or miracles, should be 
opposed to these Holy Scriptures; but, on the contrary, 
all things should be examined, regulated, and reformed ac- 
cording to them." The Westminster Confession, 1643: 
" The whole counsel of God, concerning all things neces- 
sary for His own glory, man's salvation, faith, and life, 
is either expressly set down in Scripture, or by good and 
necessary consequence may be deduced from Scripture; 
unto which nothing at any time is to be added, whether 
by new revelations of the Spirit, or traditions of men." 
Even the Anglican Church, which retains so many fea- 
tures of the old Church, cast her sixth Article in this 
form : " Holy Scripture containeth all things necessary 
to salvation: so that whatsoever is not read therein, nor 



TRADITION IN THE PROTESTANT CHURCHES. 113 

may be proved thereby, is not to be required of any 
man, that it should be believed as an article of the faith, 
or be thought requisite necessary to salvation." Such 
is the uniform tenor of the Protestant symbols. Even 
the Remonstrants and the Socinians formerly held the 
same language; and in Protestant Christendom to-day, ex- 
cept among those rationalizing bodies that repudiate all 
authority in religion, the Bible is held the only rule of 
faith and practice. Hagenbach states the difference be- 
tween Catholicism and Protestantism touching tradition, 
in the four following particulars : 

"1. While the Protestant Church asserts that the Sacred Writings of 
the Old and New Testaments are the only sure source of religious knowl- 
edge, and constitute the sole rule of faith, the Roman Catholic Church 
assumes the existence of another source together with the Bible, viz : 
tradition. 2. According to Protestants, the Holy Bible is composed only 
of the canonical writings of the Old and New Testament, while the 
Roman Catholics also ascribe canonical authority to the so-called Apoc- 
rypha of the Old Testament. 3. The Roman Catholic Church claims the 
sole right of interpreting the Scripture, while the Protestant Church 
concedes this right in a stricter sense, to every one who possesses the re- 
quisite gifts and attainments, but in a more comprehensive sense to 
every Christian who seeks after salvation ; it proceeds upon the principle, 
that Scripture is its own interpreter, according to the analogia fidei. 
With this is connected, in the fourth place, the assumption of the Roman 
Catholic Church that the Vulgate Version, which it sanctions, is to be 
preferred to all other versions, as the authentic one, and is thus to a cer- 
tain extent of equal importance with the original, while Protestants 
regard the original only as authentic."* 

In theory, Protestants early planted themselves on the 
doctrine of the Bible alone. But to conclude that they 
practically emancipated themselves from tradition and 
Church authority, would be to make a great mistake. 
How slowly the mighty spirit of Luther disentangled itself 
from the web of tradition, has been shown already. In 
fact, he never became wholly free; for to the end of his 
life his words are contradictory. If so great a mind as 

* History of Doctrines, II., p. 230. 



114 ECCLESIASTICAL TRADITIOK. 

Luther's did not pass wholly out of the shadow in a life 
time, how long would it take one-half of Christendom to 
accomplish that journey ? At the sound of the great Ger- 
man's voice, the mind of the North, long imprisoned in 
the ecclesiastical cocoon, partially burst its fetters; but 
much still remained to be done before it regained the full 
liberty of the sons of God. Considerable progress has 
been made since the days of the early Eeformers; but it 
would be a great error to suppose that what was left un- 
done by Luther and Calvin has even yet been fully accom- 
plished. The power of tradition among Protestants is 
plainly seen in three particulars : 

First : Protestants as a body have never distinctly 
grasped their formal principle. While stoutly upholding 
the doctrine of the Bible alone, they have done their work 
in part under the influence of both tradition and Church 
authority. Two courses were open to Luther. The first 
was to pass by history, to go at once to the Apostolic Age, 
and from the New Testament to reconstruct the Church of 
the Apostles — its doctrines, its rites, its polity. This 
course would make Scripture and not antiquity the mirror 
of Christianity. At the utmost, one who took this course 
would appeal to the historic development only in those 
cases where Scripture might leave questions in doubt. 
Proceeding in this way, Luther would have found fewer 
such questions rising up to trouble him than the reader 
will think; for most of the questions that history is asked 
to decide are questions that history, not Scripture, has 
suggested. The other course was to accept the historical 
development in its main features; to begin with the 
Church as it stood, and, measuring it by the Bible, to in- 
quire what reforms were needed. Either course would lead 
to the reformation of certain abuses. Still the two meth- 
ods are radically different. Adopting either, the reformer 






TRA])ITIO^ IK THE PROTESTANT CHURCHES. 115 

would use the Bible, but in different ways. No one can 
doubt that, in the second case, the work done would be 
much less sweeping and thorough than in the first. 
Choosing the first method, the reformer would restore the 
Church of the Apostles; choosing the other, he would re- 
form the one existing. Whatever difference would appear 
in the results reached, may fairly be set down to the power 
of tradition. In another place I shall inquire which of 
these methods was the correct one; here nothing more need 
be said than that Luther chose the second. His work 
did not begin with grasping the truth that the Holy Writ- 
ings are the sole guide in religion; nor did he ever work 
from that truth as a center. He grasped rather the doc- 
trine of justification by faith alone, and from this as a cen- 
ter he worked outward to the circumference. On his way, 
he affirmed the sufficiency of the Scriptures. Whatever 
stood in the way of the doctrine of justification, according 
to his apprehension, he intended to reject, even if it 
were a part of the Bible. Hence he said of the Epistle of 
James : " This seems to be an Epistle of straw; I throw it 
into the Elbe," Faith was the powerful instrument with 
which he proposed to tear off the parasites that had grown 
upon the Church. In the name of faith, he opposed indul- 
gences, and many of the peculiar Roman corruptions, and 
even the Pope himself. Other errors and corruptions that 
he did not encounter in his struggle to restore faith, al- 
though wholly without foundation in the Bible, he left un- 
disturbed. Luther sought to reform the Church of the 
sixteenth century by sweeping her decks, scraping the bar- 
nacles from her sides, and by fumigating her hull; but he 
never consciously sought by the Word of God to restore 
the Church of the Apostles. The Anglican Church, in 
her thirty-fourth Article, declares : "Whosoever, through 
his private judgment, willingly and purposely, doth openly 



116 ECCLESIASTICAL TRADITION. 

break the traditions and ceremonies of the Church, which 
be not repugnant to the Word of God, and be ordained and 
approved by common authority, ought to be rebuked 
openly," etc. Luther himself declared: "I condemn no 
ceremonies except those that fight with the Gospel; I pre- 
serve all others in our Church whole. I hate no persons 
more than those who thrust away free and harmless cere- 
monies, and make a necessity of liberty." The principle 
involved in these two quotations cannot be misunderstood. 
It is not, that must be held which is enjoined in God's Word, 
and no more; but, that must be rejected which is repugnant 
thereto. The real formal principle is not an unmistakable 
precept or an approved example, but the historical devel- 
opment, when it does not conflict with Scripture. The 
one rule is positive, the other negative; one sanctions only 
what is commanded, the other ^rejects everything that is 
forbidden. The Eeformers who followed Luther, almost 
to a man, practically adopted his rule. Accordingly, we 
have had the Church reformed times innumerable, and 
then reforms of the reformations. Protestants have never 
clearly understood Protestantism. 

Second : the early Eeformers retained many of the tra- 
ditions found in the Roman Church. This was over and 
above their failure, practically, to repudiate her doctrine of 
tradition. Even now many rites and doctrines are held by 
Protestants for which no foundation but tradition or Church 
authority can be found. Some of these will be mentioned for 
illustration. One is infant baptism. 

It is not necessary to inquire when this innovation in 
the doctrine and practice of the Church arose. But 
let a man divest his mind of the notion that history is 
the mirror of the Church; let him go to the New Tes- 
tament to find out who were admitted to baptism in 
the age of the Apostles, and the idea that infants were 



TRADITION" IN THE PROTESTANT CHURCHES. 11? 

admitted will never occur to him. Another of these 
traditions is the practice of sprinkling for baptism. 
When and how this innovation began, need not be asked, 
nor how it got a foothold in the Church; certainly no 
man seeking to reconstruct the Church from the ma- 
terials found in the New Testament would, for a moment, 
think of calling sprinkling baptism. Granted a man of 
intelligence and culture, a man well read in the languages 
and history of the ancient world, but who has never heard 
of Christianity — granted such a man, in whose hands the 
Bible is placed with instructions to build up in his own 
thoughts the primitive Church ; who supposes that the idea 
of either infant Church membership or of baptism by sprink- 
ling would even for a moment touch the extreme horizon of 
his mind ? The controversies about these practices are 
not controversies that Scripture suggests. Still, men pro- 
fess to find proof for both practices in the Bible. The ex- 
planation is this : Both practices have long existed; they 
have obtained a certain prescriptive right; their basis is 
tradition. Hence, when a man who professes to base his 
religion on the Bible has accepted either or both of these 
rites on the ground of tradition, he feels under obligation 
to find support for them in Scripture. Hence, the des- 
perate and often amusing attempts put forth in that direc- 
tion; the hard-strained and unnatural interpretations, the 
labored and far-fetched inferences. These are tributes, no 
doubt honestly paid in most cases, to consistency. Some 
Protestants, nor is the number small, realizing the hope- 
lessness of the endeavor to find these practices in the Bible, 
yet unwilling to surrender them, more penetrating if not 
more candid than their brethren, repudiate the chiyn of 
Scripture authority, and frankly say that they must be 
rested on extra-scriptural grounds. What these grounds 
are, they are not agreed on among themselves. Sometimes 



118 ECCLESIASTICAL TEADITIOK. 

it is said, in the one case, the dedication of children to the 
Lord is a useful and beautiful ceremony; and in the other, 
that sprinkling or pouring is a more convenient and taste- 
ful ceremony than immersion. More frequently, however, 
we see a claim of Church authority put forward. The 
Church has wisely ordained infant membership and sprink- 
ling. This is the substance of the plea made by Calvin 
in the quotation made below. It need scarcely be said 
that such a defense, or any defense that yields the contro- 
versy on Biblical grounds, is a betrayal of Protestantism 
into the hands of Eome. 

Diocesan Episcopacy was borne into some of the 
Churches that broke away from Eome, on the stream of 
tradition. No man who simply looks into the New Testa- 
ment for the likeness of the Church, would get a glimpse of 
either the Roman, the Greek, or the Anglican Bishop. 
The Anglican Church strictly holds to the three orders, 
Deacons, Priests, and Bishops. At the same time, some of 
her ablest writers practically yield the bishop so far as the 
Bible is concerned, and base his claims on history. Hooker 
attempts to prove the third order Apostolic; but Whately 
says Hooker ought rather to have taken advantage of the 
logical presumption : Episcopacy exists; let the man who 
denies that it is primitive show when it was introduced. 
Dean Milmansays : " Few points in Christian history rest 
on more dubious and imperfect, in general inferential, evi- 
dence" than the primitive constitution of the young Chris- 
tian republics in the Apostolic days. He grants that the 
earliest Christian communities appear to have been ruled 
and represented, in the absence of the Apostle who was the 
first founder, by the elders, who are likewise called bishops 
or overseers of the churches. He admits that in Ephesus, 
in Philippi, and perhaps in Crete, we find only these 
presbyter-bishops and deacons (see Acts xx, 17, 28; Phil. 



TRADITION IN THE PROTESTANT CHURCHES. 119 

i, 1; Tit. i, 5-7). Yet he affirms : "At a very early period, 

one religious functionary, superior to the rest, appears to 
have been almost universally recognized " — that is, a bishop 
in the modern sense. He further affirms that the 
change from the presbyter-episcopacy to the diocesan-epis- 
copacy "took place within the Apostolic times." To sup- 
port this proposition, on which the whole argument so far 
as it is Biblical turns, he offers no proof but this : "The 
Church of Ephesus, which in the Acts [see chap, xx.] is 
represented by its elders, in the Eevelation (chap, ii.) is 
represented by its angel or bishop." This is assuming that 
the angels of the seven churches of Asia are bishops, a 
mere inference opposed to the weight of the best recent 
authority. Such argumentation is mere trifling. Milman 
accepted the episcopacy at the hands of history, as his own 
language shows. He reasons thus : "It is difficult to un- 
derstand how, in so short a time, among communities, 
though not entirely disconnected, yet scattered over the 
whole Eoman world, a scheme of government popular, or 
rather aristocrat ical, should become, even in form, mon- 
archical. Neither the times nor the circumstances of the 
infant Church, nor the primitive spirit of the religion ap- 
pear to favor a general, a systematic, and an unauthorized 
usurpation of power on the part of the supreme religious 
functionary." Against the hypothesis maintained by 
Mosheim, Gibbon, and Neander, viz : That at first " the 
affairs of each community or church were governed by a 
college of presbyters, one of whom necessarily presided at 
their meetings, and gradually assumed and was recognized 
as possessing a superior function and authority " — which is 
the most reasonable hypothesis ever propounded to explain 
the rise of the episcopacy — he reasons thus : 

"But the universal and almost simultaneous elevation of the bishop 
under such circumstances, in every part of the world (though it must be 
admitted that he was for a long time assisted by the presbyters in the 



120 ECCLESIASTICAL TRADITION. 

discharge of his office), appears to me an insuperable objection to this 
hypothesis. The later the date which is assumed for the general estab- 
lishment of the episcopal authority, the less likely was it to be general. 
It was only during the first period of undivided unity that such a usur- 
pation, for so it must have been according to this theory, could have 
been universally acquiesced in without resistance. All presbyters, ac- 
cording to this view, with one consent, gave up or allowed themselves to 
be deprived of their co-ordinate and co-equal dignity. The farther we 
advance in Christian history, the more we discover the common motives 
of human nature at work. In this case alone are we to suppose them 
without influence ? Yet we discover no struggle, no resistance, no contro- 
versy. The uninterrupted line of bishops is traced by the ecclesiastical 
historian up to the Apostles; but no murmur of remonstrance against this 
usurpation has transpired ; no schism, no breach of Christian unity fol- 
lowed upon this momentous innovation."* 

The import of all this ingenious reasoning is this : The 
learned historian seeks to determine from post- Apostolic 
history a material fact in the organization of the Apos- 
tolic Church. No refutation is here called for save what 
can be put in two propositions : Milman assigns too early 
a date to the appearance of the diocesan bishops, thus un- 
duly narrowing the time within which the revolution in 
the constitution of the Church took place ; also, he exag- 
gerates the difficulty of such a revolution being made, in 
fact assumes that it was impossible. Much could be said 
to show that this change was both easy and natural under 
the circumstances; but leaving that out of the account, 
Milman's " difficulty" is far smaller than the difficulty of 
finding diocesan episcopacy in the New Testament. Dr. 
Lightfoot concedes that in the New Testament the 
terms elder and bishop are synonymous. He concedes also 
that, even at the close of the Apostolic Age, the traces of 
"the episcopate properly so-called are few and indistinct." 
He concedes, too, that "the episcopate was formed, not out 
of the Apostolic order by localization, but out of the pres- 
byterial by elevation." Still he claims that James, the 
Lord's brother, was a "bishop in the later but more special 

* History of Christianity, N. Y.. 1841, p. 194, (text and note). 



TRADITION IX THE PROTE3TAXT CHURCHES. 121 

seDse of the term ; " basing the claim on the position as- 
signed him in such passages as Acts xxi, 18; xv, 13; and 

Gal. ii, 9. At the same time, he acknowledges that the 
Gentile churches of the New Testament present no traces 
of a proper episcopal order, and scouts the idea that the 
angels of the seven churches were bishops. Following this 
distinguished scholar further, we find that he, like Mil- 
man, really accepts the diocesan episcopacy at the hands of 
the ancient, and not at the hands of the Apostolic Church.* 
Another of the human inventions accepted by the Prot- 
estant Churches at the hands of Borne, is the practice of 
using written creeds or confessions of faith as tests of fel- 
lowship. In the primitive days, a simple confession of the 
divinity and Messiahship of Christ was a sufficiently narrow 
doctrinal gate for the believer to pass on his way to the 
Saviour. On all hands it is admitted tliat, "Thou art the 
Christ, the Son of the living God," was the Apostolic con- 
fession. Gradually, however, other confessions, called 
" symbols,*' probably from their similarity to the Symbolo. 
or pass-words, of secret orders (though this is in dispute), 
confessions much more elaborate than the original one, 
obtained general currency. The first of these human 
confessions were simple and even beautiful formularies, 
containing little that is objectionable either in doctrine or 
in expression ; but the later ones are highly speculative in 
substance and technical in phraseology. As an example 
of the first, the Apostles' Creed may be mentioned; of the 
second, the Athanasian. As these creeds became old. as 
they became more and more enveloped in venerable associa- 
tions, the arg amentum ad verecundiam was appealed t<> 
in their behalf; they became a part of the ••tradition," 
and they securely rested on the firm ground of the Church's 
approval. Long before the birth of Luther, the Bible had 

*St. Paul's Epistle to the Philippians, London. 1869, p. 193, seq. 



122 ECCLESIASTICAL TRADITION. 

been practically laid aside so far as evangelizing and teach- 
ing men were concerned; the creeds and the catechisms had 
taken its place. In short, the creed principle had become 
firmly fixed in the ecclesiastical economy. The Eeformers 
accepted this principle from the old Church. They did 
not say, as Kome says, " The creed is to be used instead 
of the Bible in teaching doctrine;" they rather said, 
" The creed is a summary of doctrine." Practically, they 
read the Bible through the creed. In the first place, they 
accepted the oldest of the existing creeds — the Apostolic, 
the Nicene, the Athanasian; in the second, they supple- 
mented these creeds by elaborate manufactures of their 
own. No other error that the Reformers fell into, unless 
it be the general habit of deferring to antiquity, has so 
retarded the restoration of primitive Christianity. The 
dogmatic burdens laid by the Reformers on men's shoul- 
ders were, in a measure, different from those laid on by 
Rome, but they were quite as heavy. In fact, Protestants 
have surpassed Catholics in the amount of speculative di- 
vinity that they have put into their creeds. Both alike 
have been unwilling to trust man alone with the Bible ; 
the Catholic ties him up to the Church, the Protestant to 
the Confession. 

The boundary of the great shadow cast upon Protestant- 
ism by tradition has now been traced a little way. Nume- 
rous are the doctrines and rites held and practiced by Pro- 
testants for which they have no authority outside of tradi- 
tion, as Catholics frequently tell them. Protestants some 
times argue from Catholic premises. Calvin, for example, 
held that the primitive baptism was immersion. This is his 
language: "It is evident that the term baptise means to 
immerse, and that this was the form used by the primitive 
Church."* Still, he held to the validity of sprinkling, 

* Institutes iv., 15, 19. 



TRADITION IN THE PROTESTAXT CHURCHES. 123 

affirming that it " is not of the least consequence " whether 
the candidate be immersed or sprinkled. His language is, 
" Churches should be at liberty to adopt either, according* 
to the diversity of climates." He does not pretend that 
the Xew Testament anywhere specifically confers on the 
Church this power ; he avers that in such matters she has 
power of herself. In his Commentary on the Acts (chap, 
viii.) this is distinctly stated: 

•• But so small a difference of the ceremony ought not to be of so much 
moment to us, as that we should on that account divide the Church or 
disturb her with dissensions. Indeed, as to the ceremony of baptism it- 
self, so far as it has been delivered to us by Christ, better a hundred-fold 
to perish by the sword, than to suffer it to be taken from us; but 
when, in the symbol of water, we have the testimony of our ablution as 
well as of a new life; when in water, as in a mirror, Christ represents 
His blood for us, that we may therein seek our purification ; when He 
teaches us to be renewed in His spirit, that dead to Him we may live to 
righteousness; nothing, it is certain, is wanting to us that pertains to the 
substance of baptism. Wherefore, from the beginning, the Church has 
freely allowed herself, except this substance, to have rites somewhat dis- 
similar: for some immerse three times, others only once." Quave ab 
initio libere sibi permissit ecclesia, extra heme substantiam, ritus ha- 
bere paululum dissimiles, nam alii ier, alii antem simul tantum 
mergebat. 

Within certain limits, it will be seen that Calvin claims 
that the Church has power over the ordinances. This 
claim, a little more expanded, becomes Komanism. Ha- 
genbach thus sums up the matter : 

" With all its adherence to the authority of Scripture, Protestantism 
could not absolutely withdraw itself from the power of tradition. For 
even the authority of Scripture rested upon the belief of the Church. 
The whole historical development could not be ignored; and the Re- 
formers had no hesitation in respect to ecclesiastical usages in particular, 
to concede to tradition a certain normal, though only human, authority. 
But even in relation to the fundamental doctrines of Christianity, Prot- 
estantism declared its agreement with the oldest creeds of the Church, 
because it believed that the pure doctrine of Scripture was contained in 
them; yet without thinking it to be necessary, or even advisable, to give 
these symbols special authority as co-ordinate with the Scriptures 

* History of Doctrines, ii., p. 24S. 



124 ECCLESIASTICAL TRADITION. 

Third: there speedily sprang up a Protestant tradition. 
In process of time, the symbolical and other writings 
of the early Reformers, but especially the symbolical 
writings, commanded much of the respect and reverence 
that had belonged to the Fathers and to the decrees of 
early councils. Luther and Calvin and Zwingle and 
Knox became the Fathers of new spiritual societies. This 
was not intended or desired by the Reformers themselves. 
Hagenbach says: "That the same importance should 
afterwards be assigned to the symbolical writings of the 
Protestant Churches, which was formerly assigned to tra- 
dition, was not the intention of their original authors."* 
He says also : " It is well known that Luther strongly pro- 
tested against any prominence being given to his name, 
and all appeal to his authority."! Nor was it Luther's 
object to form a new Church. He strove rather to reform 
the old one, and to restore ancient Christianity. He had 
no taste for denominationalism, and protested against 
Lutheranism in advance. " I beseech you above all 
things," he wrote in 1522, "not to use my name, not to 
call yourselves Lutherans, but Christians." Similar pro- 
tests were put in some of the creeds. The Form of Con- 
cord declares : " But the other symbols and other writings 
* * * do not possess the authority of the Judge, 
for this dignity belongs to Holy Scripture alone ; but 
merely give testimony to our religion, and set forth to 
show in what manner from time to time the Holy Scrip- 
tures have been understood and explained in the Church 
■of God by the doctors who then lived, as respects contro- 
verted articles, and by what arguments the dogmas at vari- 
ance with the Holy Scriptures were rejected and con- 
demned."! Still more explicitly the first Confession of 

* History of Doctrines, II., p. 232. 
tibial., 11, p. 249. 



TRADITION IN THE PROTESTANT CHURCHES. 125 

Basle: " And lastly, we submit this our confession to the au- 
thority of Holy Writ, and are willing to render grateful 
obedience to God and His Holy Word, whenever we shall 
be better instructed therefrom." Creeds that contain such 
language as this could not have been intended for a finality. 
They left the way open for the confessor to go forward as 
God gave him light to see the way. But the protests of the 
Eeformers and the warnings of the creeds were unavailing. 
In the words of the great writer who has furnished so 
many facts for this discussion: "With all its theoretical 
opposition to any other authority than that of Scripture, 
Protestantism soon came to be dependent upon its own 
tradition; for the words of Luther, and the declarations of 
the confessions of faith, became (as it was not intended 
they should be) a standard and restraint, in the subsequent 
exegetical and doctrinal developments." * Some of the 
later confessions reveal a positive deterioration in their 
teaching as to the source of doctrine. The Form of 
Agreement seems to put the Word of God and the early 
Protestant confessions on the same level; while the Canons 
of D«Drt say in so many words : " This doctrine, the Synod 
judges to be drawn from the Word of God, and to be agree- 
able to the confessions of the Reformed Churches." In 
this way the earlier creeps were used as standards to mea- 
sure the later ones. Hence, they constantly tended to re- 
ligious formalism and ossification. 

How the new tradition came to be formed, will be clear 
enough to those who have studied the formation of the 
old one. Habits of thought tend to perpetuate them- 
selves. They even become hereditary. We cannot be in- 
different to the past, even if we would. We pay a certain 
respect to what our fathers thought and did. There is a 
sentiment that leads a Christian to prize a Bible that be- 

* Hagenbach, II., p. 349. 



126 ECCLESIASTICAL TRADITION. 

longed to his mother. We love the hymns that our an- 
cestors sang, the forms that they observed, the thoughts that 
filled their hearts. The past ever casts its light and 
shade over the present and the future. Hence, the argumen- 
tum ad veremindiam plays a great part in the affairs of 
men. It aids in securing a continuity of intellectual, 
moral, and religious life from age to' age. It furnishes a 
large share of that mental inertia without which spiritual 
stability is impossible. But this habit of mind, carried 
too far, makes the present the slave of the past, and for- 
ever confines a man to the mental circle in which his 
father walked. In no other sphere does man so much 
need to be upon his guard against this mental habit as in 
religion, because in no other is it so powerful. It is one 
root of veneration. What wonder, then, that the very 
spirit which led Catholic believers of the fourth century to 
venerate the names of Clement and Irenaeus led the Prot- 
estants of the seventeenth and eighteenth to venerate those 
of Luther and Calvin ! The results differ in degree, not 
in kind. The traditional habit of mind gave the old 
Church the Catholic tradition; it gave the new Churches 
the Protestant tradition. In the one, figure Clement, 
Irenaeus, Jerome, and Augustine; in the other, Luther, 
Melancthon, Calvin, and Knox. In the one, Mcea, Chal- 
cedon, Constantinople, and Rome are surrounded with ven- 
erable religious associations; so in the other are Augs- 
burg, Geneva, and Westminster. JSTo Christian body 
can be found that has reached the age of half a century, 
which has not something that answers for a tradition. 
Called infallible, as the Roman tradition is, such a tradi- 
tion is a deadly thing; looked upon as human but con- 
stantly deferred to and venerated, as the Protestant tradi- 
tion is, it is a barrier to progress ; respected but thor- 
oughly discussed and calmly weighed, it is a source 



TRADITION 1ST THE PROTESTANT CHURCHES. 127 

both of beauty and of strength. How heavily the Protestant 
tradition has pressed upon the Protestant mind, and how 
much it has retarded progress, can be learned only from 
its history. How difficult to change an old formulary ! 
The proposition to remove a single comma from the prayer 
book agitates, almost convulses, the Episcopal Church. 
Many Presbyterians, both clergymen and laymen, are dis- 
satisfied with the "Westminster Confession, but they find 
revision unattainable. And yet had the old Confession 
never been made, were the Presbyterian body, cut loose 
from the past, now called upon to make a new one, that 
they would make it according to the pattern shown in 
Westminster, probably no man believes. Those who ac- 
cept its harsher doctrines, defend them on grounds of 
Scripture; but their real defense is, "This Confession was 
made at Westminster, and has been believed and loved by 
Presbyterians for more than two hundred years." It is 
tradition that compels the recitation in Anglican worship 
of the Athanasian Creed with its hair-splitting subtleties 
and damnatory clauses; tradition that keeps the sacramen- 
tarian elements in the Book of Common Prayer; tradition 
that retains the gloomiest doctrines of Calvin in the stan- 
dards of the Presbyterian Church. It was tradition that 
led the Kev. E. D. Morris, D. D., once a Moderator of the 
General Assembly * of that Church, to say : 

"We believe that we have a creed sanctioned by the whole historic 
life and reflection of the Reformation ; born as perhaps not only the last, 
but even a most consummate flower in that long succession of creeds in 
which the Protestant Church crystalizes the common faith. That con- 
fession has stood for more than two centuries as the basis, and the test, 
and the standard of our belief. No man in all this broad Church would 
dare touch it. No man in all this broad Church has any purpose in his 
inmost heart to change or alter it. We propose to stand by it while we 
stand at all." 

What more could a Catholic say for his tradition ? 
* Cleveland, 1875. 



128 ECCLESIASTICAL TKADITION". 

What more could a Protestant say for the Bible ? No man 
proposes to alter it ! No man to touch it ! And yet that 
it is far from satisfactory to many Presbyterians, is a mat- 
ter of common notoriety. What shall we call this but 
idolatry ? What, indeed, unless we adopt the new word 
struck out in the Presbyterian debate, and call it "sym- 
bolatry." In fact, it may as well be admitted, that to 
change the doctrinal standard of any great Protestant 
Church within the Church is a practical impossibility. 
Attempts at "revision," "modification," and the like- 
might as well be given up so far as accomplishing them is 
concerned; as aids to progress mother directions, they may 
be of service. In the early history of Protestantism, re- 
vision and modification within the same communion, that 
is, new creeds, were numerous. How many are the early 
Lutheran and Calvinistic creeds ! That was when these 
bodies were in a degree plastic; before faith had ossified, 
or, to use Dr. Morris's words, " crystalized." Time had to 
elapse, allowing opportunity for the tradition to become 
rigid, before any Protestant could say of his creed. "I 
propose to stand by it while I stand at all." What great 
Protestant body has changed its standard within one hun- 
dred years ? There have been new creeds produced by 
secessions; but within what great body has there been 
enough of the innovating spirit to overcome the denomin- 
ational inertia ? But to say that innovation is not needed, 
is to say that absolute truth has been reached. It is often 
said by the defenders of written creeds, that the Christian 
who does not use them has an oral creed, a creed of the 
mind. Granting for argument's sake that the point is 
well taken, it may be replied, and history lends the reply 
irresistible force, The creed of the mind is the easier to 
change. 

I have said above that no Christian body can be found 



TRADITION IN" THE PROTESTANT CHURCHES. 129 

that has reached the age of fifty years, which has not some- 
thing that answers for a tradition. It may have been 
originally a painstaking and pious interpretation of 
Scripture; but it now lives on, not alone because it is 
thought to have original warrant of Scripture, but because 
some man, or men, found it, or thought he or they found 
it, in Scripture. It lives because it has lived. No more 
instructive, because no more recent, proof of this fact 
is known to me than is presented by the facts which I am 
about to state. 

In the first quarter of this century, our country gave 
birth to a religious movement that courageously undertook 
to carry out the Protestant principle. Its aim was to get 
back of the historical development, and hold up the New 
Testament as the mirror of Christianity. It did not pro- 
pose to reform any existing ecclesiastical organiza- 
tion, but to reconstruct from New Testament materials 
the Church of the Apostles. To use an old figure and to 
borrow" another's words, Alexander Campbell sought " to 
take the old field notes of the Apostles, and run the origi- 
nal survey, beginning at Jerusalem." Those who led this 
movement to restore Christianity emblazoned on their 
banners: "Where the Scriptures speak, we speak; where 
they are silent, we are silent." It is not pertinent to dis- 
cuss this movement here, further than to try it by the three 
criteria laid down in this chapter for the measurement of 
the Protestant Churches: 

1. It is unquestionably true that the Disciples of Christ 
have clearly and firmly grasped the Protestant principle: 
the Bible and private judgment the guides in the field of 
religion. I do not say they have always been true to it. 

2. The historical development made some mark upon 
the new movement; meaning by this expression, not simply 
the development with its reasons, but the development a 

I 



130 ECCLESIASTICAL TEADITION. 

a fact. This may be said to have been both natural and 
inevitable. 

3. The fifty years had not passed when the new tradition 
appeared. As things go, the man who can say, "Campbell 
and Scott held such and such a view/' or who can affirm, 
"Such and such has been the uniform teaching among 
us," feels that he advances an argument of no mean power. 
I am far from saying that this tradition is used as an eccle- 
siastical test; but he would be either a very bold or a very 
ignorant man who should deny its existence or its power. 
One of the best known and most scholarly of the Dis- 
ciple ministers, in a private communication lying before 
me, says: "Many do not see that tradition is a very hu- 
man, a very common fact, and that we too have already our 
corpus traditiorum held in a kind of semi-sacred awe, 
and appealed to as of the fathers." 

It has been stated above, that Protestants, as a class, 
have failed to understand Protestantism; that they have 
imperfectly understood their own principle. What does 
the principle, " The Bible and the Bible alone is the religion 
of Protestants," mean ? It means that the Church, its 
doctrines, ordinances, and polity, everything belonging to 
it. except those expedients or prudentials that, in the very 
nature of the case, depend on time and place, are found in 
Scripture; and that Christians are shut up to this Scrip- 
tural model which they have no liberty to alter or modify. 
As has been shown, the Reformers give too much stress to 
the historical development of the Church. They mistook 
the spiritual unity and continuity of which Christ speaks, 
for an objective, ecclesiastical, historic unity and contin- 
uity. Hence, they reformed the existing Church by sweep- 
ing away some of the old errors and abuses, guided by the 
negative principle of repugnancy to the Word of God, 
rather than restored the old Church by the positive prin- 
ciple of conformity. 



TRADITION IN THE PROTESTANT CHURCHES. 131 

The Protestant profession to repudiate tradition must 
be taken with many allowances. Protestants have never 
wholly repudiated the doctrine. They have retained some 
of the Catholic traditions. They have elaborated a tradi- 
tion of their own. At the same time, Protestantism is sep- 
arated from Catholicism by an immense interval. The new 
tradition does not smother spiritual life to the same degree 
as the old one. The Protestant has an open Bible, though 
he may read it through the creed; the Catholic hardly 
reads it at all, but is shut up to the authority of the 
Church. We must exonerate the great Keformers, espe- 
cially Luther, from responsibility in fixing the new tradi- 
tion; but only to lay a heavier burden on the shoulders of 
their followers. How different might have been the his- 
tory of Protestantism, could the principle set forth at 
Basle have been followed : " We submit this our confession 
to the authority of Holy Writ, and are willing to render 
grateful obedience to Cod, and His Holy Word, whenever 
we shall be better instructed therefrom." 

Note. — Doctrinal progress within the creed-churches is made by put- 
ting new constructions on the creed. When the symbol was made, its 
words had a definite meaning ; this continues to be the meaning of those 
who adhere to the form, until they outgrow it; then, unless one has the 
courage to renounce the form, he discovers that the words will bear a 
new sense. In this way the old creed is nearly subverted by theological 
fiction. Many*of these later meanings are unnatural and absurd, not 
to say dishonest. 



PART III. 



THE VALUE OF TRADITION. 



CHAPTER I. 



IS TRADITION A SOURCE OF DIVINE 
KNOWLEDGE ? 

In the first Part of this work, the origin and early history 
of tradition were investigated; in the second Part tradition, 
as a doctrine, as held by the great divisions of Christen- 
dom, was stated; and it remains only to consider its value. 
It has been shown that Catholics, Greeks, and some An- 
glicans make it an original and independent source of 
Divine knowledge. The best introduction to this chap- 
ter will perhaps be a more detailed statement of the doc- 
trines and rites said to be received through this channel. 

Bellarmin, the great Jesuit theologian, according to the 
Bishop of Ely, specifies the following: 

" How women under the old Law might be delivered from original sin, 
circumcision being only for males; and how males under eight days old 
might be saved from it. The perpetual Virginity of the blessed Virgin 
Mary, which has always been believed by the Church, and yet is not in 
Scripture. That Easter should be kept on a Sunday, which is necessary 
to be believed against the Quarto-Decimans. Infant Baptism, which is 
necessary to be believed; but neither Romanists nor Protestants can 
prove it from Scripture. That there is a Purgatory, which Luther him- 
self believed, and yet admitted that it could not be found in Scripture."* 

Other doctrines said to be more or less dependent on 
tradition are these: The equality of the three Persons in 

* Exposition of the Articles, p. 144. 



IS TRADITION" A SOURCE OF DIVINE KNOWLEDGE ? 135 

the Trinity, the procession of the Spirit from both the 
Father and the Son, Christ's descent into Hell, and the 
change of the Sabbath to the Lord's da) 7 . 

Believers in tradition are far fr<>m being agreed on the 
questions, "What doctrines are dependent on tradition? and 
What is the extent of the dependence ?" The Roman the- 
ologians, ahvays ready to enlarge tradition at the expense 
of the Bible, hold that some doctrines are wholly depend- 
ent on tradition, others partly so. The doctrines men- 
tioned above are not the exclusive property of Romanists; 
most Anglicars also receive them, some resting them on 
Scripture, some on Scripture and traditi -n, some on tradi- 
tion alone. When these doctrines are held by Prot stants, 
they are theoretically based on the Bible. Catholics charge 
Protestants with inconsistency on this point. Kernan, for 
example, says, " Protestants believe many things essen- 
tially necessary to salvation which are not contained in 
Scripture/'' and instances the following : 

" The Scripture does not anywhere siy that all the books composing 
itself are the word of God ; it cannot tell us whether our copies of it are 
correct; whether our transla ions from these are faithful; whether the 
books of Scripture that are lost are a necessary par* of the rule of faith; 
it does not tell us whether infants should be baptized; whether the obli- 
gation of keeping Saturday holy has been done away with; whether 
Sunday should be kept in its place, or at what hour the day of rest 
should commence and terminate; all these and twenty-four other neces- 
sary points are not clearly laid down in the Sacred Volume."* 

Bishop Montague, of the English Church, if we may 
follow a note to Bossuet's "Exposition." declares that 
"there are six hundred particulars, instituted by God in 
the point of religion, commanded and used by the Church, 
of which we own that the Scripture delivers or teaches no 
such thing."f It would be easy to show that Cat holies, in 

* Doctrinal Catechism, pp. 87-8. 
•f Fletcher's Edition, pp. 20G-7. 



136 ECCLESIASTICAL TRADITION. 

charging inconsistency npon Protestants, in respect to tra- 
dition, have had the better of the argument. 

It does not come in my way critically to examine the 
doctrines given above as examples; to inquire which are 
true, which false; but it is important to examine the 
underlying question, whether tradition is a source of Di- 
vine teaching ? 

As has been shown, there issued from the Apostolic Age 
two streams of the water of life flowing in parallel chan- 
nels, the oral and the written Gospels. Standing at the 
close of this age one might ask, Will both these streams flow 
on side by side across the field of future history? Dropping 
the figure, Is it the Divine intention that the G-ospel shall 
continue to exist in a two-fold form ? Mark, the question 
is not, "Will Christianity continue to be propagated both 
by oral and written teaching ?" but, " Will tradition and 
Scripture continue to be authoritative sources of Christian 
knowledge ?" The question is involved in heated contro- 
versy, and is not by any means free from difficulty. First 
of all, let it be brought within its narrowest limits. 

There is no controversy about the New Testament, the 
written Christianity; both Protestants and Catholics hold 
that this is permanently authoritative. No other sufficient 
reason for its being written could be assigned; besides, its 
permanency is expressly taught. What is more, it is ad- 
mitted on all hands that the oral teachings had been au- 
thoritative until the New Testament was written. Hence, 
the only room for difference of opinion is on the question, 
Was the oral tradition to cease ? The Protestant promptly 
answers yes; but if called on to give a reason for his answer, 
it is doubtful whether he would be able to give it with 
equal promptness. 

Bossuet is quite right when he says : " Christ Jesus laid 
the foundations of His Church upon the authority of 



IS TKADITIOX A SOURCE OF DIVIXE KNOWLEDGE ? 137 

preaching. And the consequence, therefore, is that the un- 
written word was the first rule of Christianity.*' It must 
he admitted, too, that there is a measure of truth in the 
great Bishop's further words : " A rule which, even when 
books of the New Testament were superadded to it, did 
not upon this account lose any share of its former author- 
ity." Nor can such facts as the following be excluded 
from the question. In no place does the New Testament 
teach that oral tradition is to cease, and that the written 
Word is to be all in all. Nor is there any reason to suppose 
that the Apostles so taught; if they did, their teaching- 
was oral and has itself disappeared. In no place in the 
New Testament are the oral traditions disparaged; on 
the other hand, the disciples were expressly commanded 
to observe them. What is more, there is no period in the 
history of the ancient Church where an oral tradition does 
not appear. It existed before either Gospels or Epistles 
were written: the Epistles constantly recognize its exist- 
ence and its authority: traces of it are found in the 
literature of the first half of the second century; while 
the great controversialists who wrote at the close of 
that century constantly appeal to it in their disputes 
with the heretics. Not only so, from the age of Irensens 
to the age of Leo XIII., both branches of the Church, East 
as well as West, hold aloft what they call the torch of 
Apostolic tradition. Was it, then, the Divine intention 
that oral tradition should cease to be a channel of religious 
knowledge ? I answer, Yes, and base my answer on three 
grounds : the nature of the case, the facts of history, and 
the analogy of Scripture. 

First : on a priori grounds we should not expect Chris- 
tianity, either in whole or in part, to maintain a perma- 
nent oral form. The very fact that it was written is indica- 
tive of the Divine intention. A written record is fixed, 



138 ECCLESIASTICAL TEADITIOK. 

permanent, adapted to preserve the faith, and there is no 
need, therefore, of a supplemental oral word. How multi- 
form, inconstant, and fluctuating an oral tradition is, all 
persons know who are familiar with such subjects. Spoken 
words perish almost with the breath that gives them birth; 
and those that survive are changed as they pass from hand 
to hand. They may be " winged," as Homer calls them, and 
for that very reason they are the more inconstant. Hence 
it is that critics make such a great difference between a 
tradition, although it may have assumed a written form, 
and a contemporary written record. A secret society or 
a consolidated hierarchy may preserve one in a state ap- 
proaching purity for a considerable period, but not per- 
manently. Poems, as those of Homer, have been trans- 
mitted in this way for generations without losing their 
integrity; the Talmudic traditions were thus kept alive two 
centuries ; and the grammatical traditions of the Eab- 
bis more than thrice as long. But an elaborate system 
of doctrines and rites, like Christianity, transmitted to a 
great popular body like the Church, could not be preserved 
in this way without a constant miracle. It is true that 
the ministry was designed to watch over the purity of the 
faith, but the ministry would be powerless to prevent a 
.constant deterioration. But it may be said, the written 
Gospel would serve to counteract the process of decay in 
the unwritten; the latter would lean upon the former and 
be supported by it; in other words, tradition would con- 
stantly renew itself at the fountain of Scripture. While 
there is some force in this reasoning, no man of candor, 
who knows how written books, and much more unwritten 
teachings, tend to corruption — how fluid the texts of all 
old books, including the New Testament, are — can regard it 
as a sufficient answer. What is more, the reply is incon- 
sistent with the proposition that it is thrown out to sup- 



IS TRADITION A SOURCE OF DIVINE KNOWLEDGE ? 139 

port. If tradition is trustworthy because it is supported 
by Scripture — if we are to accept it because we can verify 
it by Scripture — then we may as well go at once to the 
standard of truth and abandon all substitutes. What is 
more, even written words sometime lose their meaning. 
How great the uncertainty concerning the meanings of old 
Hindu, Persian, and even Grecian texts.* Translations 
of classic authors considerably vary. How idle, then, 
to suppose that an attempt to transmit a body of teaching 
orally could meet with success. Confucius and Socrates 
rank high among the oral teachers; but how much should 
we know of their teachings if their disciples had not re- 
duced them to writing ? Hence, the very nature of an 
oral teaching renders it impossible that it could have been 
intended as a permanent standard of Divine truth. 

So overwhelming is this reasoning, that Catholic writers 
do not pretend to meet it except by asserting the infalli- 
bility of the Church, i. e., a constant miracle. An infalli- 
ble church is a necessary condition of a trustworthy tradi- 
tion. Either Catholics must abandon their claim alto- 
gether, or rest its defense on a continuous inspiration. 
There will always be a need for a preached Gospel immedi- 
ately drawn from the written Word of God, and capable of 

* Professor Max Muller, in his essay on ' ' Progress of Zend Scholar- 
ship," remarks at some length on this point. "How many words there 
are in Homer," he says, "which have a traditional interpretation, as 
given by our dictionaries and commentaries, but the exact purport of 
which is completely lost, is best known to Greek scholars. It is easy 
enough to translate JCoXi/ioco yicoixu by the bridges of war, but what 
Homer really meant by these yicu <></.'. has never been explained. It is 
extremely doubtful whether bridges, in our sense of the word, were 
known at all at the time of Homer; and even if it could be proved that 
Homer used ytipupat in the sense of a dam, the etymology, i.e., the 
earliest history of the word, would still remain obscure and doubtful/' — 
Chips from a German Workshop, N. Y., 1869, I., p. 133. 



140 ECCLESIASTICAL TKADITIOK. 

being tested by it; but no man of intelligence, who has not 
been reared up under the shadow of tradition, is likely to 
think a traditional Gospel, in whole or in part, a feature of 
God's plan of salvation. 

Second : the argument from history supports that drawn 
from the nature of the case. What doctrines or what rites 
of an undisputed Apostolical character are found in tradi- 
tion ? Only those that are found in the Bible. Besides, 
when such doctrine or rite is found, the probability is 
that it was drawn from the Bible long after the first age 
of the Church. The very law of oral tradition renders it 
impossible that it" can maintain itself, unless continually 
renewed from a more certain source of knowledge. Left to 
itself, it either perishes or becomes so corrupt as to lose its 
genuineness. Passing by the Apocryphal Gospels and Epis- 
tles, the genuineness of which is denied by both Catholic and 
Protestant, how little is there in the literature of the an- 
cient Church that is not found in Scripture, for which it 
can even be pretended that it is Apostolical! And after a 
century or two nothing is found that is not challenged. 
Canon Westcott says: " It is a fact of great significance, 
that traditional accounts of words and works of the Lord 
which are not noticed in the Gospels are extremely rare. 
The Gospels are the full measure of what was known in 
the Apostolic Age, and (may we not add?) of what was de- 
signed by Providence for the instruction of after ages."* 
He then gives a list of such traditional waifs having some 
claim to truth, about thirty in number; all he had been 
able to collect, though he does not pretend that the list is 
complete. Words and works of the Apostles resting on a 
similar basis are also rare. How feeble and flickering this 
so-called light is, is shown by the fact that the appeal to 

* Introduction to the Study of the Gospels, London, 1867, p. 428. 






IS TRADITION" A SOURCE OF DIVINE KNOWLEDGE ? 141 

it settles nothing. Controversialists who cannot settle their 
disputes within the Bible go to the history of the early 
Church for arguments. But no great controversy about 
doctrines or rites or polities has been settled by such ap- 
peal. Again, the human affluents that continually flowed 
into the stream of tradition prove that tradition never 
could have been intended as a permanent channel of the 
water of life. Follow the two streams from the time 
they break out of the Apostolic Age to the present day. 
The one, having no fixed channel, flowing here and there, 
through sand, waste, and swamp, losing its waters and re- 
plenishing them from human sources, carries with it, 
wherever it goes, disease and death; the other, flowing be- 
tween permanent banks, keeps its waters pure, preserves 
its volume, and pours along its whole course freshness, 
health, and life. Admirable as oral teaching is for propa- 
gating truth, it is wholly unfitted for a standard of truth. 
Third: the argument from Scripture is analogical but 
conclusive. The Holy Spirit nowhere says that oral testi- 
mony should cease. It may be asked, If such was to be the 
case, why is there not a plain command to that effect? I 
answer, it was taken for granted; the writing of the Gos- 
pel, together with the very superiority of a written over 
an oral testimony, was sufficient. If not, the analogy 
of Scripture should be conclusive. Christ never speaks of 
tradition but in terms of condemnation. " Why do ye 
also transgress the commandment of God by your tradi- 
tion?" He asks. " In vain they do worship me, teaching 
for doctrines the commandments of men," He declares. 
Again, He charges the Pharisees with "making the word of 
God of none effect through your [their] traditions."* 
The Jewish Kabbis, like the Catholic doctors, declared 
that they had an unwritten law of God. It is this pre- 

*Matt, xv., 3, 9, and Mark, vii., 13. 



142 ECCLESIASTICAL TRADITION". 

tended law that Christ is condemning in the above pas- 
sages. This fact, however, does not break the force of the 
argument. A large share of the Old Testament, like the 
New Testament, was, at first, an oral deliverance. This 
oral deliverance was afterward written down; and that 
written word, together with the parts of the Old Testa- 
ment that never were oral, is what the Lord calls the law 
of God. It is not likely that a teacher who denounced 
one oral tradition on the ground that it made void the law 
of God would incorporate into his own Gospel another one. 
The principle and tendency of tradition is the same under 
both dispensations, as Catholics themselves virtually ad- 
mit when they assert that there was an authoritative Jew- 
ish tradition. Whenever a religious tradition is men- 
tioned in the New Testament, save the " things delivered" 
mentioned by Paul, it is mentioned only to be condemned. 
In striking contrast to this, Scripture is the theme of con- 
stant eulogy. " Search the Scriptures * "they 
are they which testify of me."* "Ye do err, not know- 
ing the Scriptures. "f " They have Moses and the Proph- 
ets; let them [the impenitent brothers of the rich man] 
hear them" [the writings of Moses and the Prophets.] J 
It is true that these passages relate to the Old Testa- 
ment ; but the principle and tendency of Scripture, 
like the principle and tendency of tradition, are always 
the same. As the spirit of Christ's denunciations of 
the Jews for following their traditions condemns those 
who follow tradition now; so these eulogies of Old Testa- 
ment Scripture in spirit apply to the New. When it is said, 
" All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is prof- 
itable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruc- 
tion in righteousness, that the man of God may be perfect, 
thoroughly furnished unto all good works, "§ the spirit 

♦John v., 39. + Matt. xxii.,29. % Luke xvi. , 29. § II. Tim. iii, 16, 17. 



IS TKADITIO>s T A SOURCE OF DIVINE KNOWLEDGE ? 143 

of the passage reaches forward as well as backward. What 
is more, the Holy Spirit in Revelation says over and 
over again: "Write what the Spirit says unto the 
Churches." Besides, the anathema denounced upon all 
who should add to or subtract from the same book, while 
it literally relates to the Revelation only, in principle em- 
braces the whole canon, of which this book is the close. 
Finally, the reason assigned by Luke for writing his Gos- 
pel, " It seemed good to me also, having had perfect 
understanding of all things from the very first, to write 
unto thee in order, most excellent Theophilus, that thou 
mightest know the certainty of those things wherein 
thou hast been instructed,''* expressly recognizes the 
imperfections of an oral teaching, even in the first age, 
when this teaching was at its best, and the necessity of a 
more thorough training. Theophilus has been taught 
orally; that he may "know the certainty of those things" 
which have been taught him, a written Gospel is neces- 
sary. If this was necessary in the age of the Apostles, 
much more in the ages to come; if necessary in case of one 
man, who probably had exceptional opportunities for 
knowledge, much more in the case of the whole Church. 
These arguments amply sustain the Protestant position. 
But while we cannot suppose that oral tradition was in- 
tended to be a permanent channel of Divine knowledge, it 
is easy to see how the ancient Church continued thus to 
regard it. Some of the reasons have been given already, 
and another will now be added. Let it be distinctly under- 
stood, however, that the Church, in teaching tradition, did 
not originate a new form of teaching and declare it author- 
itative: all that she did was to hold on to an old form, and 
to consider it as authoritative, after the time for its aban- 
donment had come. 



144 ECCLESIASTICAL TEADITIO^. 

The modern Christian, especially the Protestant, draws 
a clear line of demarkation between the Apostolic and the 
sub-Apostolic Ages. On the one side he finds inspired 
teachers and infallible authority; on the other, teachers 
possessing only the ordinary human qualities. He crosses 
the line at a step, and passes from the supernatural to the 
natural. All this is very clear to the mind of the modern 
Protestant, who puts all proper miracle in Christianity at 
its beginning. But what reason has hef or drawing such a 
line at the close of the Apostolic Age? That the age of 
miracles should cease, is nowhere expressly taught, nor is it 
very plainly implied. Then why do we not continue the 
age of miracles far down into the patristic period, as was 
almost universally done two or three centuries ago, or to 
the present, as the Catholic Church does now? A full an- 
swer would require an essay : only two or three con- 
siderations can here be urged. 

1. There was no need of a perpetual inspiration. Mir- 
acle is necessary for the earlier, but not for the later, stages 
of a Divine religion. Once originated by miracle, such a 
religion can safely be left to natural forces and methods. 
God's work, both in nature and in grace, begins in mir- 
acle; once begun, it moves on under the general laws that 
He has established. 

2. History very plainly shows that the line drawn by 
the Protestant is not imaginary. There are no well at- 
tested miracles this side of the Apostolic Age. What is 
more, no man living at this distance can read the writings 
of the two ages, and not see a great difference in their tone 
and quality. Compare the epistles of the Apostles with 
the epistles of the Apostolic Fathers. The difference is 
most marked. "In other cases," says Neander, who calls 
the striking difference between these writings "a phenome- 
non singular in its kind," — " in other cases, transitions are 



IS TRADITION A SOURCE OF DIVINE KNOWLEDGE ? 145 

wont to be gradual; but in this instance we observe a sud- 
den change. There are here no gentle gradations, but all 
at once an abrupt transition from one style of language to 
another; a phenomenon which should lead us to acknowl- 
edge the fact of a special agency of the Divine Spirit in 
the souls of the Apostles."* There can be no doubt that 
the ancient Church wisely excluded the patristic writings 
from the Canon. 

3. But was this abrupt transition equally obvious to the 
minds of contemporary Christians? Did those Christians 
who lived in the last quarter of the first century know 
how great a change was taking place? Did they know 
that "tongues" were ceasing, that "prophecies" were 
failing, and that hereafter Scripture was to be the only 
standard of faith and practice? With reference to these 
matters, what was the Christian consciousness at the close 
of the first century? It is almost impossible for one living 
at this distance to throw himself into the thoughts and 
feelings of that age; scarcely one in a million ever attempts 
it. In attempting this achievement, I have reached these 
conclusions: (1) The Church of that age had little sense 
of history, as the early disciples in Jerusalem had none. 
Millenarian views were general, and small attention was 
paid to the future. It was not until she had entered the 
second century, that the Church waked up to the fact that 
she had a future, and began consciously to prepare herself 
for her long march. Hence, such questions as those asked 
above received but little attention. (2) The first Chris- 
tian writings after those of the Apostles assign to Jesus a 
solitary place; He is both Lord and Christ. They also put 
the Apostles in a class by themselves. Their whole tone 
negatives the idea that the Apostles were to have succes- 
sors, either in labors or in authority. Ignatius, Clement, 

* History of the Church, Boston, I., p. 656, 7. 



146 ECCLESIASTICAL TRADITION". 

Polycarp, and the rest do not pretend to Apostolic rank. 
But (3) it does not follow that the Christians of that age 
saw what we see. That the ancient Church believed in the 
continuance of miracles, can be proved from her literature. 
Besides, the difference between Luke, Peter, Paul, and 
John on the one hand, and the Apostolic Fathers on the 
other, was seen less clearly than it is now. This explains 
why certain books ultimately pronounced uncanonical were 
sometimes held canonical. The Epistles of Clement, for 
example, were by some churches considered Scripture, as 
much as those of Paul. There is no denying, therefore, 
that the vision of the Church of the second and third 
ages was obscured and confused; sometimes it saw face to 
face, sometimes "through a glass darkly," sometimes not 
at all. The ancient Church, as a body, failed to see that 
tradition was one of the things that would pass away. 

Two principal conclusions are reached: First, it was the 
Divine intention that tradition should cease to be an au- 
thoritative source of knowledge; second, the ancient Church, 
as a body, never so understood it. The truth in respect to 
tradition, as in respect to so many other things, is that the 
ancient Church missed her way. This, however, is not 
conceding what Catholics assert, viz: that the ancient 
Church held Scripture insufficient for salvation, and tradi- 
tion to be supplementary to it. The ancient Church held 
to the sufficiency of Scripture, and appealed to tradition as 
another form of the same teaching. What Clement, Ter- 
tullian, and Irenaeus thought would be the position of tra- 
dition in the future, we cannot say; certain it is that they 
regarded it as a Divine testimony in their time. I have 
not been able to discover a time from the day Paul wrote 
the Epistles to the Thessalonians onward, that, in the 
sense above defined, the Church did not hold to tradition. 

No doubt the statements made above as to the currency 
of tradition in the ancient Church, will be objectionable to 



IS TRADITION A SOURCE OF DIVINE KNOWLEDGE ? 147 

many Protestants; not so much, however, on account of 
any evidence that they have to the contrary, as on account 
of the fancied consequences of the admissions. They will 
ask, "If tradition was received in the ancient Church, 
why must we reject it? " That is to accept the very thing 
which they propose to condemn. The second century is no 
more a mirror of faith in respect to tradition than in respect 
to other subjects. We are not to accept tradition because 
tradition says we must. 

Protestants fall into continual blunders from supposing 
that the great apostacy came suddenly, and at a considera- 
ble distance from the Apostolic Age. There was no sudden 
apostacy, but only a gradual one. It is hardly too much 
to say, the Church began to apostatize as soon as it was 
planted. Speaking more exactly, the Church is an organ- 
ism, and from the beginning we find in it two processes 
analogous to those found in the human body — waste and 
nutrition; a tendency to deterioration and a tendency to 
repair. As food and drink restore the constant loss of the 
human organism, so teaching and discipline counteract 
the constant tendency of the Church to lapse from the 
primitive faith and practice. Corruptions of doctrine, of 
polity, were gradually introduced, no doubt more rapidly 
at some times than others; but there was no great cata- 
clysm that destroyed the integrity of the Church. No 
doubt the Church of the second century was purer than 
the Church of the third or fourth; but why is it stranger 
that the second century should have gone wrong on tradi- 
tion than that the third or fourth should have gone wrong 
on something else? Let Christians dismiss from their minds 
the idea that there was a long period of pristine purity, 
and then a sudden influx of human innovations. In Paul's 
time the falling away had commenced, for the mystery for 
iniquity did already work. 



CHAPTER II. 



DOES THE NEW TESTAMENT EEST ON 
TKADITION ? 

This question is answered in the affirmative by Koman- 
ists and others, and should be carefully canvassed. Sev- 
eral statements of the claim for tradition will first be 
given; then the more elaborate one will be refuted. 

Anglican writers differ as to the authentication of Scrip- 
ture, as on so many other points, according as they are the 
spiritual progeny of the sixth or of the twentieth Article. 
Dr. Harold Browne, Bishop of Ely, proceeds mainly by 
historical testimony, as follows: 

"The principle, then, which we assert, is this, that Christ gave au- 
thority to His Apostles to teach and to write, that He promised them in- 
fallible guidance, and that therefore all Apostolical writings are divinely 
inspired. We have only to inquire what writings were Apostolical; and 
for this purpose we have recourse to testimony, or, if the word be pre- 
ferred, to tradition. The testimony or tradition of the primitive Church 
is the ground on which the Fathers themselves received the books of the 
New Testament as Apostolical; and, on the same ground, we receive 
them. We gladly add to this every weight which can be derived from 
internal evidence, or from the authority of early councils ; for we know, 
that no argument should be neglected which may fairly confirm our 
faith. But the first ground on which we receive the New Testament is, 
that it can be proved to have come from the pens or the dictation of the 
Apostles of Christ, and that to those Apostles Christ promised infal- 
libility in matters of faith."* 

Exposition of the Articles, p. 167. 



DOES THE NEW TESTAMENT KEST ON TRADITION ? 149 

But Dr. Browne's American Editor, Bishop Williams, 
referring to the promises of Divine assistance quoted by 
Dr. Browne, says: 

" But these do not seem to have been made exclusively to the original 
Apostles, nor to have been fulfilled, as far as writing Holy Scripture is 
concerned, in all of them. For not all of them contributed to the New 
Testament, and much of what it contains was written neither by them 
nor under their guidance, as the Epistles of St. Paul. We are therefore 
obliged to add that the testimony upon which we receive certain books 
as inspired, is that of the early Church, which by a divinely-guided dis- 
crimination accepted what was, and rejected what was not, written by 
virtue and in fulfillment of those promises; and that discrimination was 
based upon evidence part of which is still accessible and can be appre- 
ciated by us."* 

Precisely what Bishop Williams means by "a divinely- 
guided discrimination," may be disputed. It is safe to say, 
however, that he means more than the historical witness 
of the Church; in fact, that he builds on her authority. 

But we must pass to the Catholic view of the subject. 

Kernan asserts that " Protestants have no real certainty 
as to the canon of Scripture * * * because they pro- 
fess to believe nothing but what is expressly laid, down in 
Scripture;" while the "Scripture does not tell us what books 
are canonical, that is, what and how many books are God's 
Divine word." He also asserts " that no prudent man can 
have any confidence in a Protestant Bible, since he can 
never be certain that it is properly translated." He then 
says, "' Catholics are perfectly certain as regards both 
points," since "the Church points out the books that are 
canonical, and the correct versions of these books, "f 

Bossuet, after declaring that "the Church has been es- 
tablished by the power and wisdom of its sacred Author, 
in order to be the guide of Christian faith, the director of 
Christian piety, the guardian of the Scriptures, and the 

* Eocposition of the Articles, p. 192, Note. 
+ Doctrinal Catechism, 75-80. 



150 ECCLESIASTICAL TRADITION - . 

preserver of tradition," affirms: "We, therefore, receive 
from her hands these holy writings, which we reverence as 
canonical;" and adds: "I am even convinced, spite of the 
contrary assertion, that it is her authority, principally, 
that induces the Protestant himself to receive as inspired 
several portions of the Holy Volume." He instances the 
Song of Solomon, the Epistles of James and of Jude as ex- 
amples of books that the Protestants receive on Church 
authority. Bossuet then affirms: " It cannot be upon any 
other authority, in reality, that the Protestant receives as 
inspired the whole body of the Sacred Scriptures;" adding: 
" For it is his custom to reverence these, even before their 
perusal has convinced him that the Spirit of God is in- 
fused into them."* 

In his "Lectures on the Doctrines and Practices of the 
Church," Cardinal Wiseman, after an attempted refuta- 
tion of the Protestant method of authenticating Scripture, 
gives an elaborate account of the Eoman method. He pro- 
claims the loyalty of the Roman Church to the Word of 
God, asserts that she has a greater interest in maintaining, 
preserving, and exhibiting this Word than any body else, 
and declares "that when the Church claims authority, it 
is on the Holy Scriptures that she grounds it. f" Having 
made this profession of loyalty, he sets forth the Roman 
method of proving the Bible. Apparently, he does so with 
a semi-consciousness that his reasoning is fallacious. His 
argument can be summarized thus: 

1. " We take up the Gospels and submit them to exam- 
ination;" " we look at them simply as historical works;" 
"we find * * that to these works, whether considered 
in their substance or their form, are attached all those 
notions of human credibility which we can possible re- 
quire." Besides, he says "we find a body of external 

* Exposition, pp. 208,9. t Vol. I, p. 53. 



DOES THE XEW TESTAMENT REST OX TRADITION ? 151 

testimony sufficient to satisfy us that these are documents 
produced at the time when they profess to have been writ- 
ten, and that those persons were their authors whose names 
they bear." "As these were eye-witnesses of what they 
relate, and give us, in their lives and character, the strong- 
est security of their veracity, we conclude -all that they 
have recorded to he certain and true." 

2. These Gospels tell us of " One who wrought the most 
stupendous miracles to establish and confirm the divinity 
of His mission/" " In other w r ords, we are led by the sim- 
ple principle of human investigation to an acknowledgment 
of Christ's right to teach, as one who came from God; and 
we are thus led to the necessity of yielding implicit cre- 
dence to whatever we find Him to have taught. So far, 
the investigation, being one of outward and visible facts, 
cannot require anything more than simple historical or hu- 
man evidence." 

3. "Having once thus established the Divine authority 
of Christ, we naturally inquire, what is it that Christ 
taught?" He taught ''certain general principles of mo- 
rality," as well as "made man acquainted with his own 
fallen nature and with his future destiny;" and, 
"moreover, He took means to preserve the doctrinal 
communications to mankind.'' As "He intended His 
religion to he something permanent, something com- 
mensurate with the existence of those wants of human- 
ity which He came to relieve," "'we naturally ask, in 
what way the obligations which He came to enforce, 
and the truths which He suffered to seal, were to be 
preserved, and what the place wherein they were to be de- 
posited?" The answer is this: Christ "selects a certain 
body of men; He invests them with power equal to His 
own; He makes them a promise of remaining with them, 
and teaching among them, even to the end of time.' 3 



152 ECCLESIASTICAL TRADITION". 

These men, thus chosen and empowered, constitute the 
"institution for the preservation of those doctrines, 
and the perpetuation of those blessings, which our Saviour 
thus communicated." This body of persons, together 
with their successors, "having the guarantee of Christ 
teaching among them forever, is what he calls the Church." 
Thus far the inquiry has proceeded "by mere historical 
reasoning, such as would guide an infidel to believe in 
Christ's superior mission." 

4. But now, the inquirer is said to be in possession of 
"an assurance of Divine authority, and, in the whole re- 
maining investigation, has no need to turn back by calling 
in once more the evidence of man." That is, he is now 
guided by the Church teaching with authority. This Di- 
vine organization "immediately takes on itself the office 
of teaching, and informs him [the inquirer] that the Sacred 
Volume which he had been hitherto treating as a mere his- 
tory * * is a book which commands a much greater 
degree of respect and attention than any human motives 
could possibly bestow. For now the Church stands forth 
with that authority wherewith she is invested by Christ, 
and proclaims: ' Under that guarantee of Divine assistance 
which the words of Christ, in whom you believe, have 
given me, I proclaim that this Book contains the re- 
vealed Word of G-od, and is inspired by the Holy Spirit, 
and that it contains all that has a right to enter into the 
sacred collection.' And thus the Catholic at length 
arrives, on the authority of the Church, at these two im- 
portant doctrines of the canon and the inspiration of 
Scripture."* 

Here is the sembknce of argument, at least. The Cardi- 
nal does not simply say, "Accept the Bible as the Word of 
God because the Church says you must." Before subject- 

* Doctrines of the Church, vol. I. , pp. 64-7, passim. 



DOES THE NEW TESTAMENT REST ON TRADITION ? 153 

ing his reasoning to criticism, it will be well to restate it 
in a briefer form: Historical proof establishes the truth of 
the Gospels; the miracles of the Gospels establish Christ's 
Divinity; Christ founds the Church and clothes her with 
infallible authority; the Church declares not only that the 
Gospels, but the other Scriptures as well, are inspired and 
holy books; and men receive them on her testimony. To 
what objection is this specious reasoning open? 

First:, it moves in a circle; it is equivalent to saying, 
Scripture first authenticates the Church, and then the 
Church authenticates Scripture. In vain Cardinal Wise- 
man struggles to show that this fallacy is not involved in 
his argument. He says, for example, an ambassador from 
one government to another is received on the strength of 
credentials that he himself bears and presents; "he 
himself first presents that document whereby alone his 
mission and authority are subsequently established." 
Granting that the cases are analogous, what are the 
points of resemblance? The Church is the ambassador, 
and the Scriptures are. the credentials. An ambassador is 
indeed authenticated by credentials that he bears himself, 
but he does not authenticate his own credentials. His 
credentials validate themselves. The signatures of the of- 
ficers of State who gave him his commission, together with 
the great seal, are evidences of their genuineness. He can 
add nothing to his credentials. They never become in 
any sense an act of his own; he imparts to them no new 
quality; they are not received on his testimony to their 
sufficiency; he bears them, gets his authority from them, 
acts under them, but never says to the State which has 
received him that the papers are genuine. Freely grant 
the Cardinal his illustration, and it reacts upon him and 
his cause. We may call the Scriptures the credential- of 
the Church; we may concede that, in a sense, the Church 



154 ECCLESIASTICAL TRADITION. 

is their bearer; but that the Church can add anything to 
their authority is not only false in fact, but fallacious in 
logic. Until an ambassador adds some new quality to his 
own commission, the Cardinal can get no help from this 
illustration. But he uses another illustration that is not 
more fortunate. He says a citizen reveres the laws of his 
country, on the authority of the legislature that enacts 
them. This is true; a legislature may certify its own en- 
actments. But the Cardinal asks: "And whence does 
that legislature derive its jurisdiction and power to make 
those laws?" and answers: "Why, from that very code, 
from those very statutes which it sanctions." Here it may 
be denied that the Church, in any leading feature, is like 
a legislature. But waiving this point, it will be more to 
the purpose to deny that a legislature gets the power to 
legislate from its own legislation. There is always some- 
thing back of the legislature: the will of the monarch in 
a despotism; some conventional act or acts, resting at last 
on the popular will, in a constitutional monarchy like 
England; a constitution, in a republic like the United 
States. A legislature such as Cardinal Wiseman assumes 
would be an usurpation; and therefore, perhaps, the better 
symbol of the Roman Catholic Church. The one illustra- 
tion requires that an ambassador shall validate his own 
commission; the other that a legislature shall be its own 
authority. No artifices of logic can save either the Roman 
method of evangelization or of authenticating the Scrip- 
tures, from the charge of moving in this circle. Scripture 
authenticates the Church, and the Church confirms Scrip- 
ture ! The priest invites the infidel to enter the Church, 
and gives as a reason that the Church tells him to do so. 
The Roman theory is a house without a foundation, hang- 
ing in mid-air; a, tremendous demand on the credulity 
of men. An Anglican writer, one who had much better 



DOES THE NEW TESTAMENT REST ON TRADITION ? 155 

be in the Catholic fold, speaks derisively of what he 
calls " the worn-out sophisms of the Bible and the 'Bible 
only theory/ as though the world could stand on the tor- 
toise and the tortoise stand upon space."* But the tor- 
toise standing upon space is the proper symbol of the 
Catholic and High Anglican theory. Rather, the latter 
theory is this: The world on the tortoise, and the tortoise 
on the world! 

Second : the interpolation of the Church into the Car- 
dinal's argument is wholly superfluous. It cannot add 
anything to its force. The Gospels, as books of ordinary 
historic verity, authenticate the Church, it is said; and then 
the Church proclaims that they are inspired — a thing that 
can never be known without her signature. That is, his- 
toric testimony can authenticate a Church that can pro- 
claim certain books inspired, but it cannot authenticate 
inspiration. To be sure, the Cardinal, as though he 
caught a glimpse of the circle in which he moves, saysr 
" We do not believe the Church on the authority of Scrip- 
ture, properly so called; we believe it on the authority of 
Christ." But as we have no knowledge of Christ save 
what we get from Scripture, and as our certainty, up to the 
moment of the Church's proclaiming the Gospels inspired,, 
rests on historic testimony, this plea does not mend the 
matter. The argument demands that a chain shall be 
stronger than its weakest link — that a stream shall rise 
above its source. 

But, again, the Cardinal says: "We are led by the 
simple principle of human investigation to an acknowledg- 
ment of the authority of Christ to teach as one who came 
from God." What can the Church do for us more? Can 
certainty rise higher than this? He goes farther: " We 

*H. N. Oxenham. See his Preface, p. xiv., to Dollinger's Reunion 
of the Churches, New York, 1872. 



156 ECCLESIASTICAL TKADITION". 

are thus led," that is by human investigation, "to the 
necessity of yielding implicit credence to whatever we 
find Him to have taught." Can tradition or the authority 
of the Church strengthen such a faith? Once more, he 
describes the Scriptures "as a book manifesting to us one 
furnished with Divine authority to lay down the law." 
What firmer foundation can there be for our faith? So 
far as the Gospels, at least, are concerned, we have no need 
of the Church (in the Eoman sense); for when the history 
and teaching of Christ are received as worthy of "implicit 
credence," nothing remains to be added. But it may be 
said, implicit credence, in the Cardinal's sense, does not 
include inspiration. But if human testimony can assure 
us that Christ is Divine and a Saviour, what need of stronger 
assurance? What stronger can there be? Besides, if the 
G-ospels are not inspired (to the mind of the inquirer) when 
he asks the Church how he is to regard them, they cannot 
be when she has answered; since inspired testimony is as 
much needed to authenticate a church as to authenticate 
a book. 

But so far we have been dealing with the Gospels; what 
of the other books of the New Testament? While human 
testimony may suffice for the Gospels, do we not need the 
authority of the Church in the cases of the other writings? 
Before replying to this question, let it be noted that Car- 
dinal Wiseman says nothing about human testimony in the 
case of these books, though it is not presumable that 
he intended to leave the impression that no such testimony 
exists. In fact, there is no difference in the two cases; all 
the books rest on testimony. What the real method of 
proving Scripture is, Avill be shown in the next chapter. 
Here let it be remarked once more, Church authority can 
add nothing to the testimony showing that these books are 
divinely revealed. 



CHAPTER III. 



HOW THE NEW TESTAMENT IS AUTHENTI- 
CATED. 

Cardinal Wiseman's method would, be unobjectionable 
if he would leave out the authority of the Church. The 
following propositions, which are stated without illustra- 
tion, will be found to cover all the ground: 

1. By historical evidence, we prove the Gospels to be 
genuine books; that is, we show that they were written by 
those men whose names they bear. 

2. The contents of these books, together with the char- 
acter of the writers, their opportunities for knowledge, the 
severe tests to which they were subjected, prove the books 
to be true and authentic. 

This is all on the principle of human, historic testimony. 

3. Hence, on the strength of testimony, we accept the 
teachings and miracles of Jesus. These teachings and 
miracles prove His Divine mission. " No man can do these 
miracles that thou doest, except God be with him."* 
Hence He is to be followed. 

4. Jesus promised inspiration to his Apostles (John 
xiv, 25, 6; John xvi, 13; Mark xiii, 11; Matt, xxviii, 20). 
This inspiration they claimed to receive. 

5. Whatever, therefore, the Apostles said or wrote when 
acting under this commission was inspired. 

* John, iii, 2. 



158 ECCLESIASTICAL TEADITION". 

6. What they did write, must be determined by the 
simple principle of human investigation — human, histor- 
ical testimony. 

7. Paul also was chosen an Apostle, and clothed with 
the proper authority. This choice and endowment valid- 
ate his writings; what his writings are, must be made out, 
as in the other cases, by testimony. 

8. Mark wrote his Gospel at the dictation of Peter, and 
Luke his at the dictation of Paul. Both of these proposi- 
tions rest on ancient evidence. Luke, we prove in the 
same way, wrote the Acts, and the most of it from per- 
sonal knowledge. 

Only the method of proof is here given; for the real evi- 
dence, the reader must consult the appropriate works. It 
is such as the following: Manuscripts in the original, ver- 
sions in numerous languages, catalogues of the Sacred 
Books, quotations and references in ancient writings, com- 
mentaries, statements and allusions of secular writers. 
This external objective evidence is supported by internal 
evidence. In the words of Bishop Burnet: "The author- 
ity of those books is not derived from any judgment that 
the Church made concerning them; bub from this, that it 
was known that they were writ, either by men who were 
themselves the Apostles of Christ, or by those who were 
their assistants and companions, at whose order, or under 
whose direction and approbation, it was known they were 
written and published."* But it will be asked, Are we not 
dependent on the Church for these sources of evidence? 
And if so, are we not shut up to Church authority? These 
questions call for careful answers. 

The historical proofs of Christianity may be divided into 
two classes, the Christian, and the anti-Christian. The 
former are much the more abundant, and, in the aggre- 

* Exposition of the Thirty-nine Articles, Art. VI. 



HOW THE NEW TESTAMENT IS AUTHENTICATED. 159 

gate, much the more valuable. At the same time, they do 
not differ in nature from the latter. A quotation from 
one of the Sacred Books, or a reference to one of them, 
found in Celsus or Porphyry, is just as valuable (some 
would say more valuable) for our purpose as the same quo- 
tation or reference found in Irenseus or Clement. In so 
far, then, as the evidence comes to us from heathen sources, 
it cannot be claimed that it rests on the authority of the 
Church. But it will be said, most of the evidence belongs 
to the other category. This is true, and hence we must 
consider its relations to the Church. Says the Bishop of 
Ely: 

" That evidence is principally dependent on testimony, but is not re- 
solvable into mere authority. It is the witness of the Church, not merely 
its sanction, to which we appeal. Now the position of the Church in its 
earliest ages was such, that its witness on this subject is singularly unex- 
ceptionable. During the very life times of the Apostles, it had spread 
through the civilized world. Europe, Asia, Africa, had all heard the 
voice of the Apostles, and all had flourishing churches long before the 
death of the last of that sacred body. The books which the Apostles had 
written were, therefore, not merely to be found in one or two ob- 
scure corners of the world, but they were treasured up and read and 
reverenced in Rome and Alexandria, in Antioch and Ephesus, in Corinth 
and Thessalonica, very probably in Spain and Gaul and Arabia, per- 
haps even in the remote region of Britain itself. There were, therefore, 
witnesses in every corner of the globe. Even where the arms of Rome 
had not carried conquest, the feet of Apostles had carried good tid- 
ings of peace. In many of these churches, the writers of the Sacred 
Books were well-known and constant visitors; so that Epistles as from 
them, or Gospels with their names, could not have been palmed off upon 
their converts, who could continually have rectified errors of this kind by 
direct appeal to the living sources of Divine instruction. The writers of 
the New Testament themselves took care that what they wrote should 
be widely circulated, and extensively known, when first they wrote it."* 
[Col., iv., 16; I. Thess., v., 27.] 

Now the phrase " witness of the Church" used by the 
learned Bishop is, or is not, misleading, according as it is 
understood. If by the Church is meant the members of 

* Exposition of the Thirty-nine Articles, pp. 168-9. 



160 ECCLESIASTICAL TRADITION. 

the Church as individuals, if by " the witness of the 
Church" is signified the witness of those early Christians 
who testified to their religion, in the books that they 
wrote, the words that they spoke, or in the sufferings that 
they endured, the phrase is unobjectionable. Such a view 
makes the testimony or witness an individual matter; it 
bases the facts of Christianity on the testimony of wit- 
nesses. In this way, Paul appeals to testimony to prove 
the resurrection of Christ. The risen Lord was seen of 
Cephas, then of the Twelve, next by above five hundred 
brethren at once, afterwards by James, once more by all 
the Apostles, and last of all he was seen by Paul also, as 
one born out of due time.* But if we are to understand 
by the phrase the Church collectively, an ecclesiastical cor- 
poration or hierarchy, especially if we are to understand 
the authority or inspiration of the Church, then the phrase 
is not only misleading, but false. When given statements 
purporting to be facts are made, it is not enough to be told 
that they are believed by the majority, or even by all, of the 
community; one must have particular persons pointed out 
to him, worthy of credit, who are responsible for the state- 
ments. Hence, we must reject any theory of Christian 
evidence that sinks the individuality of the original wit- 
nesses in the concensus of the Christian body. In great 
part we receive the New Testament books on the testimony 
of witnesses found in the Church, but not on the authority 
of the Church. By holding that authority is the basis of 
Scripture, the individuality of the witnesses is lost sight of, 
and the strength of the argument is reduced. Infidel 
writers have been quick to catch at the claim of authority, 
and to turn it to their special uses; denying the sufficiency 
of the historical testimony to the books, and affirming that 
Christians received the books solely on the ground of au- 

* I Cor . , xv, 5-8, 



HOW THE NEW TESTAMENT IS AUTHENTICATED. 161 

thority. The more zealous and indiscreet advocates of 
tradition hold, that the New Testament canon was settled 
by the councils of the fourth century, and this allegation is 
caught up by infidels, who put it in this form : The canon- 
icity of the New Testament books was settled by the ayes 
and noes of a parcel of bishops. Professed defenders of 
the faith should beware how they give their hands to its 
enemies. So far from the High-Church doctrine being a 
shield of the faith, as is continually asserted, its very 
claims of priestly prerogative and ecclesiastical authority 
are the most effective weapons of the sceptic. The quick 
intelligence of this age is not content to rest its faith on 
such authority. 

But it may be asked, " Are we wholly independent of 
the Church, considered as an organization? Had not the 
Body of Christ some functions to perform in perpetuating 
the Gospel?" The consideration of these important ques- 
tions will close this part of the discussion. 

Through the ministry that she organized, the communi- 
ties that she established, the N intelligence that she cre- 
ated, the vigilance that she exercised, and the publicity 
that she gave to the Scriptures, the Church contributed 
powerfully to the Christian argument. It is true that 
the agents through which she acted were men, but these 
agents were much more efficient on account of their 
union in one body than they would have been as isolated 
individuals. In this way the disciples throughout the 
world worked together to perpetuate and authenticate 
the Scriptures, and to keep them incorrupt. Thus the 
Church was the pillar and ground of the truth. What 
is more, some weight may be properly attached to 
mere authority when it is properly limited and defined. 
The books were admitted to the Canon on grounds of 
evidence; and the fact that a certain book was received in 

K 



162 ECCLESIASTICAL TRADITION. 

the second century by the great Christian body, is evidence 
that the testimony was thought sufficient to justify its ad- 
mission. For example, no other book of the New Testa- 
ment now rests on such slender historical evidence as Sec- 
ond Peter. Some of the original evidence to its authorship 
may have perished. At all events, its reception by the 
Christians of antiquity, who acted in view of all the light 
in their possession, furnishes presumptive proof of its gen- 
uineness. The decisions of the councils of the second and 
third centuries are worth no more than the evidence on 
which they rested; no element of infallibility entered into 
their decisions; we may fairly claim for them a certain 
judicial weight, but nothing more. 

In confirming Scripture, a considerable importance may 
fairly be conceded to tradition. The oral Gospel preceded 
the written; the written was simply the oral put into a 
new and more permanent form. When the Gospels were 
written, the facts and teachings that they contained had 
been for a number of years in the possession of the Church. 
The Church was a living organism, growing out of those 
facts and teachings. The acceptance of these books by 
this community is its judgment that the written Gospel 
coincided with the oral. The same body that had approved 
the Gospel story as told, now approved it as written. The 
Epistles, most of them written before the Gospels, were 
addressed to persons already in possession of the Christian 
fundamentals. The principal doctrines and ordinances 
were established in the Church before the New Testament 
was written. Hence, the apologist of the second century 
could point to these ordinances and doctrines as they ex- 
isted both in Scripture and in the Church. Then there 
was power in the appeal to tradition, as well as in the 
appeal to Scripture. By and by old doctrines were cor- 
rupted and new ones introduced; old rites were changed 



HOW THE NEW TESTAMENT IS AUTHENTICATED. 163 

and new ones adopted; that is, the stream of Church tes- 
timony began to grow muddy; and yet the fundamentals, 
both of doctrine and ordinance, remained: the ministry of 
Jesus, His death and resurrection, His divinity, salvation 
through His name, baptism, the supper, and the first day 
of the week. What is more, notwithstanding the fearful 
apostacies of the last eighteen hundred years, the lapses 
from primitive faith and practice, the great body of the 
Historic Church has preserved the central facts, commands, 
and promises of the Gospel. Within the pale of the great 
National Churches, the Greek and the Latin, not to men- 
tion the dissenting bodies, Christ has never been left with- 
out a witness. Such facts as these are entitled to very 
great weight in considering the historical basis of Chris- 
tianity. Christ's religion has been transmitted in its pu- 
rity in written books, in a corrupted state in a living chan- 
nel. While no well-instructed Christian would go to the 
latter to find the pure water of life, he may trace that 
channel back to the original fountain. Or, while no such 
person would go to the Church to find his religion, he may 
point to that great historic monument to show that, for 
eighteen hundred years, that religion has existed among men. 
Again, say what the believer may about apostacies, say 
what the unbeliever may about ecclesiastical abuses, neither 
the one nor the other stands to Christianity in the relation 
that he would if there were no Historic Church. His pres- 
ent relation is this : he has not only the Bible but also 
an historic body, professing to give expression to the doc- 
trines of the Bible. He might have the Bible, but find no 
trace of any such body. Grant that the original evidences 
were the same in both cases; exclude any objection that 
might arise from the failure of Christ's promises, who can 
claim that it would be as easy to authenticate the Scrip- 
tures without the Church as with the Church? In the 



164 ECCLESIASTICAL TRADITION". 

one instance, we have an ancient book, a relic of anti- 
quity authenticated by certain testimony; in the other in- 
stance, the same book and the same testimony are brought 
down to us in the hands of a living organization, claiming 
to venerate the book, and certainly making some effort to 
be guided by its teachings. With all its shortcomings, the 
great Christian body is an important witness for Christ. 
Had the Church been true to her great mission, nay, were 
she now but united upon the foundation of Apostles and 
Prophets, her testimony would be irresistible. 



CHAPTER IV. 



THE INTEKPKETATION OF SCRIPTUKE. 

The Eoman Catholic Church holds that the Church of 
the Apostles was divinely put in possession of the sense of 
Scripture, and that this sense has been handed onward by 
infallible tradition to the present time. After what has 
been already said concerning infallibility and Church in- 
spiration, this specific claim need not be here refuted. But 
the so-called hermeneutical tradition is highly valued by 
many Christians who do not believe in Church infallibility, 
and this more moderate view does call for attention before 
the whole subject is dismissed. I shall first present two 
quotations from Anglican writers. The Bishop of Ely 
holds thus: 

"Those early Christians who had the personal instruction of the Apos- 
tles and their immediate companions, are more likely to have known the 
truth of Christian doctrine than those of after ages, when heresies had 
become prevalent, when men had learned to wrest Scripture to destruc- 
tion, and sects and parties had warped and biased men's minds, so that 
they could not see clearly the true sense of Holy Writ. Truth is one, 
but error is multiform ; and we know that in process of time new doc- 
trines constantly sprang up in the Church, and by degrees gained footing 
and took root. We believe, therefore, that if we can learn what was the 
constant teaching of the primitive Christians, we shall be most likely to 
find the true sense of Scripture preserved in that teaching; and where- 
ever we can trace the first rise of a doctrine, and so stamp it with nov- 
elty, the proof of its novelty will be the proof of its falsehood; for what 
could find no place among the earliest churches of Christ, can scarcely 



166 ECCLESIASTIC \L TRADITION". 

have come from the Apostles of Christ, or from a right interpretation of 
the Scriptures which they wrote."* 

Dr. J. H. Blunt gives a moderate Anglican view of the 
same subject in the following passage: 

" But the providential use of tradition has been principally that of 
preserving in the Church a true knowledge of Divine Revelation. Its 
office in the preservation of Holy Scripture has already been shown in 
the account given of the Sacred Books; and in interpreting it, in the ac- 
count given of the Council of Mcsea. The great question of early days, 
wheD any controversy arose respecting the authenticity or the meaning of 
the Scriptures was, ' What was believed by those who were nearest to 
the Apostles ? and hence, what did the Apostles hand down in trust to 
the Church of after times V In this manner arose that which may be 
called the common law of the Church, a traditional expression of the 
truth handed down from generation to generation, and eventually re- 
poited in the writings of those early Christian writers of whom an 
account will be given in the next section of this volume. They study 
the Bible very imperfectly indeed who despise this common law of the 
Church; and the more learned theologians are, the more they respect it 
as a guide to truth. And although nothing is absolutely binding upon 
the faith except that which is contained in the Holy Scripture, or may 
be proved thereby, there is often a moral weight in the traditions of the 
Church which gives them a great practical importance in the eye of the 
well-informed and truly rational Christian; and which inclines him to 
the opinion that he is safer in receiving them than in rejecting them."t 

These quotations contain unquestionable truth. The 
early Christians were more likely to know the truth of 
Christian doctrine than those of after ages; we do "know 
that in process of time new doctrines constantly sprang up 
in the Church;" and the proof of novelty was the proof of 
falsehood. The great question of early days was, as the 
question of these days should be, "What did the Apostles 
hand down in trust to the Church of after times ? " Nor 
need we hesitate to concede that there is often " a moral 
weight in the traditions of the Church which gives them 
a great practical importance in the eye of the well-informed 

* Exposition of the Thirty^nine Articles, p. 183. 

t Household Theology, N. Y. and London, 1871, p. 159. 



THE INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE. 167 

and truly rational Christian." Still the Anglican view, 
thus presented, requires considerable modification. I shall 
now seek to state, in the form of positive exposition, the 
truth of the matter. 

We must grant that the oral form of the Evangelical Tra- 
dition was an aid to the primitive Christians in under- 
standing the written form. Oral speech is more perspicu- 
ous and lively than written speech, especially where its 
substance has been many times repeated. The personal 
presence of the Apostles in the Church, and the presence 
of those intimately associated with them (say such men as 
Timothy and Titus), must have been of great advantage 
in enabling the disciples to get a firm hold of the Gospel. 
It is impossible that a written book could have been imme- 
diately so serviceable as these communications by the liv- 
ing voice. Hence, it was only when the Apostles were 
unable to communicate with individuals or churches in 
this way that they resorted to written epistles. Again, we 
may safely grant that the oral teaching of the Apostles was 
a key to their writings. The Church in Ephesus, for ex- 
ample, could understand the letter addressed to them all 
the better from the fact that Paul, in that city, "by the 
space of three years ceased not to warn every one night and 
day with tears."* In so far as the Gospel took on an out- 
ward form, the primitive Christians had a still greater ad- 
vantage; they saw and heard what was done by the Apos- 
tles or by their authority. To a certain extent, the Gos- 
pel was to them a matter of sense-perception, and not of 
verbal interpretation. For them there could be no contro- 
versy over baptism, nor could they be in doubt as to how 
often and to whom the Lord's Supper was administered. 
They saw the entire machinery of the Church in operation, 
and they knew its every part. No doubts hung over many 

* Acts, xx, 81. 



168 ECCLESIASTICAL TRADITION". 

of the ecclesiastical questions that now perplex and divide 
the Christian world; for them these questions did not exist. 
They knew whether the bishop and the presbyter were the 
same officer; they knew in what relation the bishops stood 
to the Apostles, what were the duties of the evangelists, 
and whether there were lay-elders and deaconnesses. They 
knew directly the meaning of the command that the bishop 
must be the husband of one wife; and they were not obliged 
to weigh delicate arguments to decide whether it meant 
that he should not be a polygamist, that he should be a 
monogamist, or something else. Undoubtedly the Corinth- 
ians knew certainly what Paul meant when he spoke of 
those which " are baptized for the dead," while we can 
only conjecture.* This face-to-face knowledge of the 
Apostolic Church was the peculiar blessing of the prim- 
itive Christians. It was to be esteemed all the more 
highly from the peculiar nature of the New Testament 
writings. The Epistles all the time assume the exist- 
ence of the Gospel; they take the Church for granted. 
Hence, many things are never put in the form of stat- 
utes; they are stated indirectly and inferentially; and 
we should often be in hopeless confusion could we not 
supplement precept by example. Besides, considerable 
parts of the New Testament relate to the social and 
religious economy of the contemporary world, Jewish and 
heathen ideas, institutions, and customs. This economy 
was to the primitive Christians a living thing; they were a 
part of it; and they were not obliged to build it up in 
their thoughts, to call it out of the dead past, as we are, 
by slow research and a painful use of the historical imag- 
ination. They enjoyed the same great advantage in the case 
of the Church. These facts gave a vividness to the ideas 
of the primitive Christians, and a certainty to their knowl- 

*I Cor., xv, 29. 



THE INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE. 169 

edge, that is now beyond the reach of the most gifted gen- 
iuses. Now, it is claimed by the advocates of tradition 
that the more substantial of these advantages have been 
handed onward to our day. But that the claim has no 
foundation, can easily be shown. 

Where has this knowledge been preserved ? The answer 
is, In the Fathers. It is found, then, in books, a fact 
which shatters the argument at once. This is sending us to 
a second set of writings to find out what a first set mean. 
So far, then, in the very nature of the case we are cut off 
from the peculiar advantages that the primitive Christians 
enjoyed — the advantage of a face-to-face knowledge of the 
Apostolic Church. Tradition, then, as embodied in books, 
must be abandoned, so far as meeting the case is con- 
cerned. Still, it is proper to question antiquity as to any 
assistance that it can render us. Let us then take a glance 
at the Fathers. 

The true mode of biblical interpretation is to follow the 
historico-grammatical sense. The grammatical sense of a 
word, phrase, or proposition, in the words of Dr. Muen- 
scher, is " that meaning which appears to be the natural,, 
obvious, and customary meaning of the language, as ascer- 
tained from usage, irrespective of extrinsic considerations." 
The historical sense " depends upon the age and country in 
which the writer lived, his education, temperament, style 
of writing, his religion and various surroundings, and the 
prevalent opinions, usages, and customs of the times."* 
Thus, A\ibv grammatically means time or age; historically, 
a dispensation, as the Jewish or Christian. Melancthon 
was quite right in saying : " Scripture cannot be under- 
stood theologically, unless it is understood grammatically;" 
and Luther in saying : " The knowledge of the sense can 
be derived from nothing but the knowledge of the words.'' 

* Manual of Biblical Interpretation, pp. 101, 2. 



170 ECCLESIASTICAL TRADITION. 

In gaining a knowledge of this sense, we must be 
guided by those rules of interpretation which are sanc- 
tioned by experience. Nothing is to be rejected that can 
throw light on the sacred text. In the words of Dr. Muen- 
scher, '■ The Bible is the rule of faith, interpreted by all 
the lights we can bring to bear upon it." Hence it is, that 
we derive advantage from those who. are learned in the 
Hebrew and Greek languages, who are familiar with the 
principles of interpretation, who have studied the world in 
the midst of which the Church was planted, who have 
studied the Scriptures, and are in sympathy with them. 
Accordingly, the Fathers must aid us, if at all, not because 
they were inspired either individually or collectively, but 
because they were men of given abilities, and of given op- 
portunities for knowledge. The tradition of the Church 
has value, if it have any, not because it comes through an 
infallible channel, but because it exhibits a consensus of 
intelligent interpretation. When we have determined, 
therefore, what the abilities and opportunities of the Fath- 
ers were, we are in possession of the rule that must meas- 
ure the aid that they can render us in understanding the 
Word of God. It should be added, that in speaking of the 
opportunities of the Fathers, I include any advantages 
that they possessed in consequence of their nearness to the 
Apostles. As the object of this discussion is to fix a prin- 
ciple, and not to apply it, I am not called upon to give a 
careful estimate of the exegetical services rendered by the 
Fathers. But it will be useful to state some facts which 
will serve to keep our estimate of that service within proper 
limits : 

1. As a class, the Fathers of the first six centuries were 
not what we would call learned men. Some of them were 
fair, two or three of them excellent, scholars. The most 
learned were Origen and Jerome. Origen, although a man 



THE INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE. 171 

of great genius, learning, and industry, was fanciful in his 
turn of mind, and wedded to a vicious system of interpre- 
tation; while Jerome, having less genius but more balance, 
was a man of strong passions and bitter antipathies. He 
was the only man of his day, or for many centuries, who 
was qualified by his knowledge of the Hebrew language to 
translate the Old Testament into Latin. 

2. Some of the Fathers were men of unstable minds, 
lacking in penetration and common sense. They often in- 
terpreted according to allegorical principles. Ori gen's 
work is thus described by Dr. Muenscher: is He pushed 
the allegorical mode of interpretation to a far greater and 
more dangerous extent than any of his predecessors. To 
the Scriptures he ascribed a three-fold sense, viz: the lite- 
ral or grammatical, the moral, and the spiritual or mys- 
tical. To the first of these he attached very little value; 
but regarded the hidden or mystical sense as the only one 
worthy of regard. None but the most wild and visionary 
of the present day would regard him as a safe and judi- 
cious expositor of the Sacred Volume. Swedenborgians 
might adopt him as a guide, but not any one who places 
common sense above fancies and dreams."* Tradition 
rests heavily on the shoulders of Irenaaus, but nothing- 
would be easier than to show that he often entertained the 
most absurd views of Scripture. 

3. The literary and critical apparatus necessary to equip 
an interpreter did not exist in the first six centuries; ma- 
terials for comparing and verifying texts Avere not as ac- 
cessible as they are now, nor was there any such thing as a 
developed science of criticism, in our sense. 

4. The writings of these Fathers do not cover all the 
New Testament, much less the Old. For the most part, 
the ante-Nicene Fathers wrote apologetically and contro- 



* Manual of Biblical Interpretation, p. 35. 



172 ECCLESIASTICAL TRADITION. 

versially, not exegetically; and their expositions of Scrip- 
ture were generally incidental. The later Fathers pro- 
duced more, and more valuable, exegetical writings. Still, 
Dr. Muenscher remarks: " The expository writings of the 
Fathers of the first six centuries cover only a compara- 
tively small portion of the Sacred Volume. On some parts 
of the New Testament they are somewhat copious and 
valuable, especially those of Chrysostom; but on the Old 
they are very meagre, and, with the exception of Jerome, of 
little value. If we rely, therefore, upon them to enlighten 
us in regard to the true meaning of the Bible, we shall 
find ourselves in five cases out of six without a guide, and 
be compelled to pursue our way in the best manner we can 
in the exercise of our rational faculties."* 

5. The Fathers constantly conflict with one another. 
No one can deny the truth of Chillingworth's celebrated 
charge: " There are Fathers against Fathers, and Fathers 
against themselves; a consent of Fathers of one age against 
a consent of Fathers of another age." 

What can be more absurd, then, than to send the in- 
quirer to the Fathers for the meaning of the Bible ? In 
many respects, the patristic literature is the more difficult of 
interpretation. " Let the Scriptures be hard," says Mil- 
ton, "are they more hard, more crabbed, more abstruse 
than the Fathers ? He that cannot understand the sober, 
plain, unaffected style of the Scriptures will be ten times 
more puzzled with the knotty Africanisms, the pampered 
metaphors, the intricate and involved sentences of the 
Fathers." To be sure, tradition consists of the decisions 
of councils, as well as of the patristic writings; but these 
decisions only assert general doctrines, and do not expound 
Scripture. Besides, if we may follow Chillingworfh, there 
are councils against councils, as well as Fathers against 

* Manual of Biblical Translation, pp. 40, 1. 



THE INTERPRETATION" OF SCRIPTURE. 173 

Fathers. And yet, confused and contradictory as are these 
materials, Komanists and advanced Anglicans would send 
us to antiquity for our knowledge of Christianity, because 
the Bible is so incomplete, obscure, and hard to be under- 
stood ! Especial value is supposed to attach to the her- 
meneutical writings of the ante-Mcene Fathers. In their 
behalf the maxim is quoted, " Contemporary interpretation 
is the best interpretation." It is said that the oral Gospel 
was fresh in their minds, and that they saw the Apostolic 
Church as its authors had left it. But they did not live 
before corruptions began, nor is there, strictly speaking, 
any contemporary interpretation of the New Testament. 
Other things being equal, their interpretations of Scrip- 
ture would have great weight; but they are not equal. No 
scholar will deny that Chrysostom, Jerome, and Augustine 
were better interpreters than any who preceded them; but 
they all saw the opening of the fifth century. No one 
need hesitate to affirm, that the exegetical labors of the first 
six hundred years are inferior in value to those of the last 
half century. We have seen the Hebrew and Greek lan- 
guages thoroughly studied, and their literature explored, 
a thorough critical apparatus provided, and antiquity, both 
Pagan and Christian, restored. Why, then, should we be 
sent to the Fathers to find out what the Bible means, 
rather than to the Bible itself ? 

The Catholic and Tractarian say that tradition teaches 
Christianity. But Catholic authors do not rest their case 
solely on tradition as embodied in books, but assert that 
the Historic Church, the Catholic Church of to-day, is the 
Church of the Apostles. Their language is: "Here is the 
original, primitive, Mother Church, a living organism; her 
bishops are the successors of the Apostles; the living, oral 
Word of God has been handed down uncorrupted in her 
successions; and what she tenders you in point of doctrine, 



174 ECCLESIASTICAL TRADITION". 

morals, or polity is the same that was preached and 
practiced by the Apostles, so that you have, in effect, the 
face-to-face knowledge of the primitive believer." This is 
simply a re-assertion of the old and preposterous doctrine 
so often exploded. It is the old claim of the identity of 
the Church, of Apostolical succession, and of infallibility. 
Borne has had, according to her own showing, nearly three 
hundred pontiffs, and that no message can be transmitted 
through so long a line, uncorrupted, without a perpetual 
miracle, is plain upon the simple statement. But I need 
not, at this stage of the argument, turn back to refute 
once more the dogma of Church inspiration or Papal in- 
fallibility. The fact is, we have not, and cannot have, the 
face-to-face knowledge of the Gospel and the Church that 
the primitive Christians had. That was one of their espe- 
cial blessings as primitive Christians. We have our full 
compensation, part of it in things that they sighed for but 
never enjoyed. There are Christian sects whose existence 
bears witness to the Gospel, and to the Church; they may 
be said to bear a living testimony; but this is solely be- 
cause they are, at least by profession, built upon the Bible, 
and draw their doctrines and ordinances from the Bible. 
There is no ecclesiastical body existing whose testimony is 
worth a fig, in the peculiar Boman sense ; that is, as the 
testimony of a living body, reaching back to the first age, 
and handing on the traditions delivered by the Apostles in 
the successions of her ministry. 

The above view does not take from antiquity anything 
that properly belongs to it. Antiquity is a strong wit- 
ness to Christianity, considered as a whole, but not to the 
interpretation of particular passages, or to the minor facts 
of history. The Catholic and the Tractarian say that tra- 
dition teaches Christianity, and that Scripture confirms 
the teaching; the true method is to go to the Bible for 



THE INTERPRETATION" OF SCRIPTURE. 175 

religion, and then to history for such light as history can 
throw upon it. I hold that Apostolic baptism was immer- 
sion; history furnishes us with no trace of another mode 
until the middle of the third century, and shows that im- 
mersion was almost universal until the thirteenth. I hold 
that the New Testament presbyter and bishop were the 
same office-bearer; the Fathers use the terms interchange- 
ably for a hundred years after the death of the Apostle 
John. I hold that Jesus is the Son of God, Divine; and 
when some one tells me that this doctrine is a corruption 
of an earlier faith, I reply by showing from history that 
such was the teaching of the Church all along. I find the 
Saviour washing his Apostles' feet, and the Apostles teach- 
ing the kiss of love; in doubt, on Scripture grounds, 
whether these were permanent ordinances of the Church, 
I search antiquity, and, finding no trace of them there, 
conclude such was not their purpose. I find that absti- 
nence from things strangled and from blood was at one 
time enjoined on certain churches; but conclude, since 
there is no later trace of the prohibition, that it was not a 
perpetual statute. In this way, the history of the early 
Church possesses a peculiar value; the great doctrines and 
ordinances of the Gospel stand out in that history like pyr- 
amids on a level plain. What is more, the interpretation 
of language is largely dependent on authority. Use is the 
law of language; we can tell the meaning of a word only by 
finding out how it has been used; while for the historical 
sense we are wholly indebted to history. That a given 
passage found in any book has universally, or even gene- 
rally, been understood in a given way, is a strong presump- 
tion that such is its meaning. There need be no hesita- 
tion, therefore, in conceding a certain weight to tradition, 
or rather to history, in determining the doctrines of Chris- 
tianity. In fact, if the word tradition could be dropped. 



176 ECCLESIASTICAL TBADITION. „ 

and the word history substituted; if it could be wholly 
dissevered from an imaginary infallibility and from Divine 
anthority; if it could be used for proof and illustration, 
and sifted as history is sifted for other purposes, then there 
would be less disposition to question its value. At the 
same time, most of the questions that history is asked to 
answer are questions that history has suggested; and it 
must be confessed that she does not answer them with such 
-authority as to put an end to controversy. Dr. Blunt 
says we must go to tradition to find out "what was be- 
lieved by those who were nearest to the Apostles." How 
much easier and safer to go to the Scriptures to find out 
what was believed and taught by the Apostles themselves ! 



CHAPTER V. 



SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION. 

In the Introduction to this Essay, the reader was cau- 
tioned not to miss the author's standpoint. It was said: 
" He is not writing of traditions, but of Tradition . Believ- 
ers in tradition believe it to be an instrument of doctrine, 
an organ of teaching, a channel through which Divine 
communications have descended from Christ and the Apos- 
tles to our own times. This is the sense attached to the 
word throughout this essay. Sometimes particular tradi- 
tions will be mentioned, though more for illustration than 
for any other purpose. Tradition as now described is it- 
self a tradition, and the most important of all. Tradition 
is a tradition through which other traditions flow. Its 
own bases and authority are traditionary. But it is the 
object of this book to examine the channel of transmission, 
the conducting pipe through which traditions flow, and 
not the stream that the pipe carries. A discussion of 
tradition can thus be brought within narrow limits ; but 
exhaustively to discuss traditions would require a library." 
The task here defined has now been finished. My Book 
has been devoted to The Origin and Early Growth of Tra- 
dition, to the Place that it holds in the Churches, and to 
its Value. Though far from claiming that the discussion 
has been exhaustive, or thinking that it will be universally 

L 



178 ECCLESIASTICAL TRADITION. 

satisfactory so far as it goes, I shall still hope that light 
has been thrown on all these questions. 

The reader has noticed that some points of chronology 
have been left undetermined and fluctuating. For in- 
stance, When did the Bible practically give way to the 
Church teaching by authority ? When did the injunction, 
"Search the Scripture" make room for the injunction, 
"Obey the Church?" When did men first hold that 
Scripture was too obscure and defective for a rule of faith, 
and that tradition is an independent and coordinate source 
of Divine knowledge ? The very nature of tradition and 
the history of its origin make it impossible to render defi- 
nite answers. Tradition was an evolution. No man made 
it. It can hardly be said to have been made at all. It 
was a growth, and sprang out of the general consciousness 
of the Church. It sprang up silently and grew slowly; 
and the very men who had most to do with fostering it lit- 
tle knew what they were doing. Hence, the above ques- 
tions can be answered only approximately. Still we have 
seen that, in the first age, the oral preaching was the only 
form of the Gospel; that, in the second and third ages, it 
ran side by side with Scripture; and that, in the ancient 
Church generally, tradition was treated with great respect. 
" During all the early centuries," says Dr. Hodge, "the 
distinction between Scripture and tradition was not so 
sharply drawn as it has been since in controversies between 
Eomanists and Protestants, and especially since the deci- 
sion of the Council of Trent.'' While the ancient Fathers 
made the Bible the rule of faith, it did not stand out be- 
fore their minds, even the ablest of them, in the clear-cut 
way that it stands out before the Protestant mind to-day. 
We have seen how-tradition grew in strength and in mag- 
nitude, until, at last, so far as the mass of believers was 
concerned, the Bible was a hidden book. Nor should it be 



SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION. 179 

forgotten, that the barbarizing of the Western mind, the 
destruction of literature and of literary habits, by making 
the laity dependent upon the oral teaching of the clergy, 
contributed materially to this practical repudiation of 
Scripture. 

Considerable space has been devoted to locating the 
great divisions of Christendom with respect to tradition : 
the Eoman Catholic, the Greek, the Anglican, and the 
Protestant sects. This discussion need not be recapitula- 
ted. It has been made manifest that, of all the millions 
who profess the Christian name, the vast majority, con- 
sciously or unconsciously, directly or indirectly, theoreti- 
cally or practically, concede a certain authority to ecclesi- 
astical tradition. Nor should all authority be denied to it, 
as I have tried to say; the nature and the limits of that 
authority, I have also tried to fix. We cannot cut loose 
from the past; we must respect the historical development 
of doctrines, institutions, and societies; to assert the con- 
trary is saying, in effect, that both the individual man and 
the human race must begin its mental existence anew ev- 
ery day. However, this fact plainly appeared as we went 
on with the discussion — that the Churches defer to tradi- 
tion far beyond what is reasonable or safe; in what sense or 
way, need not be re-stated. We may wonder that Christian 
men should ever have gone so far as the Creek, much 
more the Latin, Christian has gone. But when we remem- 
ber how tradition grew, how the mental habit which defers 
to it was cultivated, and wa^ itself handed on as a part of 
tradition — how many and how strong were the forces tend- 
ing to propagate it, and what a weak thing is the human 
mind, much of our wonder ceases. We must remember 
that Antiquity ever lifts her awful front above the present. 
The maxim, Whatever has come down to us is true, does 
not prevent innovations; but it makes the innovation sa- 



180 ECCLESIASTICAL TRADITION". 

cred so soon as it is made. Eespect for antiquity is a divi- 
sion of the argument from authority; an argument that is 
legitimate within certain limits, but that, pressed beyond 
those limits, is most dangerous. It has been carried so far 
as to land Chinamen in the worship of their deceased ances- 
tors. ''Who are we," it is asked, "that we should presume to 
think that we know better than our fathers ? " Mr. Fow- 
ler, the learned writer on Logic, justly says: "On many 
matters of fact, there can be no question that the belief 
of previous generations, when properly examined and 
sifted, must be accepted as final, inasmuch as they were 
contemporary with, or at least nearer than ourselves to, the 
original sources of information." He then says that, to 
infer from this just and limited deference the necessity of 
an undiscriminating submission to the opinions of our 
ancestors, would be an example of the fallacy of induc- 
tion by simple enumeration. In some cases, however, he 
thinks the argument rests on these grounds: 

" We reverence the opinions of the aged, because they have had more 
experience than we have had, and, therefore, surely, on the same princi- 
ple, we ought to accept the opinions of our ancestors who lived in by- 
gone generations. The point of resemblance is the fact of having been 
born at a period prior to ourselves, and hence it is inferred that the 
greater experience and greater wisdom which are found to be concom- 
itants of this fact in the case of many of our senior contemporaries may 
also be presumed in the case of those who have long since been dead. 
It, of course, escapes the notice of those who have recourse to this argu- 
ment, that the average age of the persons living at any one time is about 
the same as that of those living at any other, and that superior wisdom 
is the consequence, not of priority of birth, but of greater experience. 
Thus far, the fallacy may be regarded as one of false analogy, strictly 
so-called. But there is another consideration which turns the edge of 
the argument. Experience grows with time, each generation not only 
inheriting the accumulated experience of previous generations, but add- 
ing to the stock its own acquisitions. ' Recte enim,' says Bacon, Veritas 
temporis filia dicitur, non auctoritatis. Antiquitas saeculi juventus mun- 
di.'"+ 

* Inductive Logic, pp 308, 9. 



SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION. 181 

But to point out the particular fallacies involved in the 
argument from antiquity, will be useful only to those 
who regard the opinions of the past as opinions, and 
the men of the past as men. It is idle thus to reason, 
hoping to convince men who believe in Church inspiration 
and the continuance of miracle. But, knowing the influ- 
ence of antiquity over the human mind, as well as the 
sense of ease that authority gives, we can even understand 
how an occasional Protestant — a man of a given type of 
mental character — should surrender his soul to tradition. 
Protestantism is a stern religion. It gives a man the Bible, 
and tells him to work out his own salvation with fear and 
trembling. It provides no ecclesiastical shelter behind 
which he is safe from his own spirit. It knocks from un- 
der him all ecclesiastical props, and leaves him to stand 
alone with the help of God. It takes him out of the innu- 
merable company of priests, and leaves him in spiritual 
isolation, to solve the problem of his destiny. No priest, 
no hierarchy, no Church can save him. Protestantism, 
therefore, demands strength and intrepidity of soul. With 
Catholicism, the case is very different. In the words of 
Emile de Lavaleye, "The Reformed religion rests on a 
book, the Bible; the Protestant, therefore, must know 
how to read. * * Catholic worship, on the con- 
trary, rests upon sacraments and certain practices, such as 
confessions, masses, sermons, which do not necessarily in- 
volve reading/'* The distinguished Belgian points out 
the bearing of these two kinds of religion upon general 
education and intelligence. Here only their connection 
with the present subject can be remarked upon. Rome 
says, in effect: "You need not read; attend my sacra- 
ments and masses, hear my sermons and do my practices. 
I am Holy Mother Church; with me are the chairs of 



* Protestantism and Catholicism, 



182 ECCLESIASTICAL TKADITIO^". 

the Apostles, especially the chair of Blessed Peter. I am 
older than the New Testament; I am the pillar and the 
support of the truth; the Apostles, delivered to me the 
oral Gospel, and it has been handed down in the succes- 
sions of my pastors, as well as in certain books; I am built 
upon the Rock; Christ is with me always, even to the end 
of the world; within my communion is faith and peace: 
come, debating, doubt-tossed, weary Protestant, lay aside 
your doctrine of the Bible and private judgment, cease to 
question and argue, come, and pillow your head upon my 
bosom and you will find rest ! " To a resolute spirit the 
invitation is an insult, but to a certain kind of mind it is a 
godsend. Given a man whose intellect is receptive rather 
than creative, poetic rather than logical — a man disposed 
to trust rather than to question, of high susceptibility to 
the argument from antiquity — a man filled with solemn 
awe by the dim, religious light of a Gothic cathedral, trem- 
ulous at sight of an old martyr's picture, doting on Ma- 
donnas, given to religious bric-a-brac, peculiarly respon- 
sive to the influence of the Holy Places, thinking it irrev- 
erent, if not sacrilegious, to speak of an Apostle without 
the prefix " Saint," — given such a man as this, who has 
been taught, or who can be taught, to read the Bible 
through the patristic prisms, and, if he do not die in the 
communion of Mother Church, it will be either because no 
priest crosses his track, or on account of other accidental 
circumstance. 

While I have sought in this book fairly to state the facts 
relating to the various subjects canvassed, I have not 
sought to disguise my own adherence to the Protestant 
principle. Still, I am far from claiming that Protestants 
have always been loyal to that principle, or that they have 
always understood it. On the other hand, I have pointed 
out how often they have, willingly or unwillingly, betrayed 



SUAniARr AKD CONCLUSION. 183 

their own doctrine. At the same time, historical Protest- 
antism is a vast improvement on historical Catholicism. 
"By their fruits ye shall know them." Protestantism re- 
stored the Bible to men. It stirred the human mind, and 
aroused a spirit of inquiry. It has done most of the valu- 
able work done the last three centuries to explain and 
illustrate the Bible. It has held up Scripture and private 
judgment as the true method of religion. It has not 
swept the ecclesiastical heavens of all the clouds that gath- 
ered in the ages of darkness, but these are disappearing be- 
fore its breath. Besides, we can trace a constant, though 
slow, progress from the beginning. With many inconsist- 
encies and much unfaithfulness, with some wanderings and 
turnings back, on the whole Protestantism has moved for- 
ward. Rising to an elevation higher than mere Protestant- 
ism, there can be no mistaking the grand religious move- 
ment of the last three centuries. Look for a moment at 
the Christianity of ten, five, or three centuries ago. What 
a mass of pagan superstitions and ecclesiastical traditions 
had overgrown the Gospel of Jesus ! Compare the Chris- 
tianity of the New Testament with that of the Church in 
the twelfth or fifteenth century. The one is clear, sim- 
ple, consisting of few proper dogmas and few rites, free, 
easy of apprehension; the other is confused, complex, 
abounding in dogma and in ceremony, most burdensome 
to the mind and oppressive to the heart. If I may apply 
the description that M. Coquerel uses for another purpose, 
the latter is a "vast labyrinth," a " movable chaos." Such 
is the difference between the religion of Jesus and the 
religion of the Pope. Now, for centuries the grand relig- 
ious movement has been from the labyrinthian chaos to- 
ward more light and freedom. With much absurdity and 
extravagance, the movement has been J rom tradition and 
human authority toward reason and Divine authority. 



184 ECCLESIASTICAL TEADITIOK. 

Mother Church has done her utmost to resist this progress; 
she has cursed it over and over again. Not content with 
cursing, she has brought to bear the whole power of her 
vast enginery. But in vain. Nature and History move 
on in their appointed order; the sun does not go back on 
the dial-plate. Eome's proclamation of the Immaculate 
Conception and Papal Infallibility, her Syllabus and Vati- 
can Council, her Sacred Hearts and Lourdes Pilgrimages 
cannot blind the eyes of the discerning to the direction 
in which the world-currents are sweeping. Certainly it is 
within the bounds of truth to say, never since the second 
century have superstition and tradition had so little real 
power in the Church as they have in the best portions of 
the Protestant world to-day. Nor do I forget the articles, 
canons, and rubrics that are still found in the symbolical 
books of the Churches. So effectually is the power of tra- 
dition broken, that some religious men are actually sweep- 
ing away too far, even disregarding Divine authority, and 
ignoring that unquestionable weight which the consensus 
of more than fifteen centuries yields to the great verities 
of New Testament religion. The time has fully come 
when a man may, without laying himself open to the 
charge of credulity, look forward to a day when the com- 
mandments of men shall no longer make void the law of 
God. 



In this discussion, Tradition and Authority have often 
been used as synonymous, though the distinction between 
them as ecclesiastical terms has been pointed out. But 
there is a broader view of Authority than the ecclesiastical 
view, with which this book may properly close. It is, in 
general, the view presented by Mr. Gladstone in his Re- 
view of Sir G. C. Lewis's "Essay on the Influence of Au- 



SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION. 185 

thority in Matters of Opinion," and in his " Kejoinder ,7 
to Sir James Stephen. * 

To define knowledge, to distinguish its varieties, to 
point out all its sources, to state the difference between 
fact and truth, especially to discriminate between knowl- 
edge and opinion, knowledge and faith, and opinion and 
faith, particularly to determine the worth of opinion, and 
the extent to which faith is a safe guide, requires philo- 
sophical abilities of the highest order. Certainly a vast 
amount of knowledge and opinion, and not a little faith r 
rest on a basis of authority. In his " Elements of Rhet- 
oric," Dr. Whately gives this one glance at the subject : 

" It is manifest that the concurrent testimony, positive and negative, 
of several witnesses, when there can have been no concert, and especially 
where there is any rivalry or hostility between them, carries with it a 
weight independent of that which may belong to each of them considered 
separately. For though, in such a case each of the witnesses should be 
even considered as wholly undeserving of credit, still the chances might 
be incalculable against their all agreeing in the same falsehood. It is on 
this kind of testimony that the generality of mankind believe in the mo- 
tions of the earth, and of the heavenly bodies, etc. Their belief is not the 
result of their own observations and calculations ; nor yet again of their 
implicit reliance on the skill and the good faith of any one or more as- 
tronomers; but it rests on the agreement of many independent and rival 
astronomers, who want neither the ability nor the will to detect and ex- 
pose each other's errors. It is on similar grounds, as Dr. Hinds has justly 
observed, that all men except about two or three in a million, believe in 
the existence and in the genuineness of manuscripts of ancient books, 
such as the Scriptures. It is not that they have themselves exam- 
ined these; or, again (as some represent), that they rely implicitly on 
the good faith of those who profess to have done so ; but they rely on the 
concurrent and uncontradicted testimony of all who have made, or who 
might make, the examination; both unbelievers, and believers of various 
hostile sects ; any one of whom would be sure to seize any opportunity to 
expose the forgeries or errors of his opponents. " 

Mr. Gladstone holds that the word " authority" comes 
from the Latin auctor, from augere, meaning to make to 

*Both papers are found in Mr. Gladstone's ''Gleanings of Fast 
Years." Vol. III. 



186 ECCLESIASTICAL TRADITION. 

groio; the original sense of auctor is "voucher, surety, wit- 
ness" — " the proper idea is that of one who adds." "In 
strictness, this must he adding to what existed before, as 
the witness adds to the thing his testimony about the 
thing; a surety of his own liability to the liability of the 
principal." "An author comes between us and the facts 
or ideas, and adds to them a Tziar^, or ground of belief, 
in his own assurance to us respecting them." "And 
hence/' he says, "we obtain the largest and clearest idea 
of l authority,' as that which comes between us and an ob- 
ject, and in relation to us adds somethirjg to the object 
which is extrinsic to it, which is apart from any examina- 
tion of it- by ourselves, but which forms a motive, of 
greater or less weight, as the case may be, for belief or ac- 
tion respectively in their several spheres." 

In the " Eejoinder," Mr. Gladstone thus defines the 
principle of authority: "That the mass and quality of 
prior assent to a proposition in some minds may be, with- 
out examination of the grounds, a legitimate ground of as- 
sent for other minds, in matters of knowledge, and in mat- 
ters of voluntary action." Lewis defines it more tersely as 
"the influence which determines the belief without a com- 
prehension of the proof." In the first paper, Sir George 
Lewis's more analytical definitions are thus presented: 

" 1. His inquiry has no reference to matters of fact; and these he de- 
fines as ' anything of which we obtain a conviction from our internal 
consciousness or any individual event or phenomenon which is the object 
of sensation. 

" 2. Disputed questions of fact pass into the region of matters of opin- 
ion. And more largely, matters of opinion are general propositions or 
theorems relating to laws of nature or mind, principles and rules of 
human conduct, future probabilities, deductions from hypotheses, and 
the like, about which a doubt may reasonably exist. 

"3. Opinions may be entertained from compulsion, or from induce- 
ment of interest. These I should say may be conveniently called author- 
ity improper; but they rest upon authority proper, when embraced 
without reasoning, because others, believed or assumed to be competent, 
entertain them. 



SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION. 187 

"4. 'A large proportion of the general opinions of mankind are de- 
rived merely from authority, ' and the advice of competent judges has 
great influence in questions of practice. When truths have been discov- 
ered by original inquirers, and received by competent judges, it is prin- 
cipally by authority that they are accredited and diffused . Such an 
adoption cannot lead to an improvement of knowledge or to the discov- 
ery of new truths: ' the utmost he can hope is to adopt the belief of those 
who at the time are least likely to be in error.' We are, of course, to 
assume this proposition to apply to the cases where it is necessary or 
harmless to have some belief, and where there are not such patent 
grounds for doubt or question as to recommend that valuable, though 
sometimes despised expedient, suspense of judgment." 

" Inquiry is a road to truth and authority is a road to 
truth " Between them there is no antagonism. i( Identi- 
cal in aim, diverse in means and in effects." " Inquiry is 
the more normal, the more excellent way; but penury of 
time and faculty absolutely precludes the human being from 
obtaining by this truly royal road, a sufficient stock of 
knowledge for the necessary action of life, and authority is 
the humble but useful substitute." " The opposition 
which is sometimes made between authority and reason 
rests on a confusion of thought." Authority is the "crutch 
which we use for a missing or a halting limb," or it is a 
" carriage in which we may properly take our places to per- 
form long distances that we cannot achieve on foot." The 
real extent to which we are indebted to authority, is but 
faintly outlined in the following paragraph: 

" In his second chapter, Sir George Lewis shows the great extent of 
the opinions founded upon authority. These are such as we derive from 
instruction in childhood, or from seniors, or from fashion. He shows 
the extremely limited power of inquiry by the working class, and how 
even the well-informed rely chiefly on compendia and secondary author- 
ities. He shows how, in strict truth, when we act upon conclusions of 
our own, for which the original authorities are no longer present to our 
minds, we become authorities to ourselves, and the direct action of rea- 
son is as much ousted as if we were acting on authority extrinsic to us. 
Then there is the deference shown in the region of practice, to profes- 
sional or specially instructed persons; or to friends having experience, 
which enables a man to discern grounds of belief invisible to the unprac- 



188 ECCLESIASTICAL TEADITION. 

ticed eye. In these matters we take into view the amount of attention 
given, the ability of the person, his responsibility, and his impartiality." 

The foregoing general view of authority commands the 
assent of the thinking mind. But Sir G-. C. Lewis denies 
the applicability of the principle of authority to questions 
of religion, but so qualifies the denial as to destroy, vir- 
tually, its force. "At least it is only applicable to it," he 
says, " within certain limits." Certainly there are limits 
to its application here, as elsewhere; whether narrower or 
wider limits than elsewhere, we need not attempt to an- 
swer. Sir George's statement, as Mr. Gladstone presents 
it, is this: 

"1. The consent of mankind binds us in reason to acknowledge the 
being of God. 

" 2. The consent of civilized mankind similarly binds us to the ac- 
ceptance of Christianity. 

" 3. The details of Christianity are contested; but in doubtful ques- 
tions the Church, and, e. g., the Church of England at large with respect 
to its own members, is more competent than they are individually; and 
the business and duty of a reasonable man, so far as in these matters he 
is bound to have an opinion, is to follow the best opinion." 

Mr. Gladstone then discusses these propositions at 
length, limiting the application of the third one, and ex- 
tending the sphere of the two others. He holds that 
authority may really authenticate the doctrine of Revela- 
tion, the use of Sacraments, the Christian Ethics, the 
Creed (meaning the Apostles' Creed as expanded in theNi- 
cene), the Trinity, and the Incarnation. What he means, if 
I understand him, is this: Men may accept these things 
because the whole civilized, or authoritative, world has 
also agreed to accept them. In a way, this is resting 
religion on authority, but not on authority in the Roman 
sense. Mr. Gladstone holds no more than that men who 
have not the ability or the time to inquire, may accept 
doctrines and rules because men who have inquired ac- 
cept them. He rests on "the whole civilized, authorita- 



SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION". 189 

tive world," not on an infallible Church. He does not 
deny or discourage inquiry, but calls it the "truly royal 
road " to truth. His view is, then, far higher, wider, and 
stronger than the Roman view. He would carry his gen- 
eral doctrine of authority into religion, and that doctrine 
he states once more, thus: 

"Beit observed, then, that authority claims a legitimate place in 
the province of opinion, not as a bar to truth but as a guarantee for 
it; not as an absolute guarantee, but only when it is the best that 
may be had ; not in preference to personal inquiry reaching up to the 
sources, but as the proper substitute in the multitude of instances where 
this is impracticable. Authority, rightly understood, has a substantial 
meaning ; in that meaning, it is not at variance or in competition either 
with truth, or with private inquiry, and private judgment. It is a 
crutch, rather than a leg; but the natural energy of the leg is limited, 
and when the leg cannot work the crutch may." 

Sir James Stephen attempted to show that Mr. Glad- 
stone did not fairly represent Sir George Lewis's views, 
and Mr. Gladstone replied, defending what he had written; 
but into that controversy I should not enter, even if I had 
made proper preparation to do so. But I do insist that 
Mr. Gladstone's view contains unquestionable truth; how 
much, will be a matter of controversy. In our age inquiry 
is the theme of constant eulogy, authority of constant de- 
traction; there is continual harping upon the assumed an- 
tagonism of authority and reason, authority and truth; and 
it is, therefore, not impertinent to say, what some seem to 
have forgotten, that authority has an indisputable place, 
and a high place, too, though not so high as the place of 
inquiry, in the Temple of Truth. Ic seems to me that 
Mr. Gladstone claims too much for authority in religion. 
However, without criticising his propositions one by one, 
I shall go on to state my own conclusions. 

1. All will agree that the common rule for settling the 
onus probandi applies here: whatever, for the time, holds 
the ground has the logical presumption in its favor. That 



190 ECCLESIASTICAL TKADITIOK. 

a religion is generally received within considerable limits, is 
presumptive evidence that it contains some truth; or that 
an institution, as a government, exists, raises the presump- 
tion that it is, on the whole, useful. This much can be 
said for Mohammedanism in Arabia, or for absolutism in 
Eussia. Hence, the past and present prevalence of Chris- 
tianity in the civilized world is a conclusive reason why 
those who reject it, should take the affirmative and show 
why they differ from the majority. Since the conversion 
of the Eoman Empire, the Christian apologist has the ad- 
vantage of holding the ground. 

2. But in this case the presumption is vastly more than 
a mere arbitrary rule for determining which of two disput- 
ants shall take the affirmative, and which the negative, in 
a debate. The logical presumption often has an authority 
behind it, that can be urged as argument in the debate 
itself. The unanimous suffrage of mankind may fairly be 
said to settle any question, and the nearer to unanimity 
the suffrage is the greater is its authority. But there is 
more in the matter than mere numbers. This authority is 
stronger or weaker according as it springs from the assent 
of those who stand high or low in the scale of human life. 
One hundred intelligent Christians fair]y outweigh a mil- 
lion degraded Pagans. Thrown into the balance with New 
England, China kicks the beam. Sir G-. C. Lewis actually 
" finds that we may justly confine the field of discussion 
[as respects authority in the widest sense] to the civilized 
nations of Europe, with the Greeks at the head, and the 
Romans as their pupils following them." " He excludes," 
says Mr. Gladstone, " not only barbarians, but Chinese, 
Hindoos, Persians, and Turks, on the ground of their want 
of progress in political institutions and scientific knowl- 
edge, from the suffrage, so to speak, or the title to count 
in that consent that makes up authority." Now, if Chi- 
nese, Hindoos, Persians, and Turks are to be excluded from 



SUMMAKY AND CONCLUSION. 191 

the consent of nations as respects science, philosophy, and 
political life, I can but think that they should, for the 
stronger reason, be excluded as respects religion. Further, 
when we remember that the ground was fully pre-occupied 
when the Gospel was given, that it made its way in the 
face of the most determined opposition, that slowly the 
most enlightened peoples of the old world abandoned Pa- 
ganism and embraced Christianity, that for centuries it 
has been the religion of the most, in fact of the only, pro- 
gressive nations, that to-day civilization and Christendom 
are really conterminous, that the Gospel has been received 
by the greatest minds of the modern world, — when we re- 
member these things, the argument from authority becomes 
singularly strong and impressive. For an unbeliever to 
say to a believer, "Your acceptance of the Gospel is no rea- 
son why I should accept it," is not a statement of the argu- 
ment. A beliver's acceptance of the Gospel is, indeed, no 
basis for an infidel's faith; but it may be a reason why he 
should look into the matter for himself. Much more is it 
a reason where the acceptance is the acceptance of the 
Christian world. I do not hold that authority makes it 
the duty of a man to embrace the Gospel, but do hold that 
it makes it his duty to treat it with moral seriousness. To 
contemn the religion of France, Germany, England, and 
the United States, far as it comes from being the religion 
of the New Testament, argues greater shallowness or friv- 
olousness of mind than it would to sneer at the philosophy 
of Greece or the jurisprudence of Rome. Among the ar- 
guments, then, that may legitimately be urged in favor of 
Christianity is the one that springs from the Christian con- 
sensus of fifteen hundred years. And this I say remember- 
ing the incalculable mischief that has been wrought in the 
world by the principle of authority. 

But strong and impressive as the argument from authority 
unquestionably is, and however it may answer the purposes 



192 ECCLESIASTICAL TRADITION. 

of action, it does not pertain to the foundation of the Gos- 
pel, and can never satisfy an inquiring mind. When the 
Apostle Peter commanded the disciples, <f Be ready always 
to give an answer to every man that askethyou a reason of 
the hope that is in you,"* he did not in the remotest hint 
at the argument from authority, either in the Roman sense, 
or in any other sense. He referred, rather, to the great 
verities of the Christian faith. Hence it will be well to 
look again, and from a different angle, at the ground 
passed over in the chapter on authenticating the New 
Testament. 

The Gospel contains a variety of elements. There are 
(1) The strictly moral teachings; (2) The proper dogmatic 
teachings, as Christ's pre-existence, divinity, and atone- 
ment; (3) The positive ordinances, as baptism; and (4) 
supernatural facts. The moral precepts are true in them- 
selves, and carry their own proof and sanction; the proper 
dogmas and positive ordinances rest on authority; and the 
facts are proved by testimony, As respects the dogmatic 
and positive elements, the soul walks by faith. Man's 
guide here is the authority of God. But how is this au- 
thority certified to him? I answer, it is certified by the 
supernatural facts. Miracle is the (or a) seal of Divine 
authority. Accordingly, Christians may be divided into 
two classes — a small and a large class. The small class 
consists of those who were the original eye-witnesses 
of the facts; those who could say with Christ, "We speak 
that we do know, and testify that we have seen;" f 
or with John, that they "declared" "that which was 
from the beginning " which they had heard, which they had 
seen with their eyes, which they had looked upon, and 
their hands had handled of the word of life. J This per- 
sonal, face-to-face knowledge of the verities of Christian- 

* I Peter, iii., 15. + John iii., 11. % I John, i., 1-3. 



SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION. 193 

ity, furnishing the basis of Divine authority, was the pecu- 
liar and precious possession of a small number of persons 
in that age. All others of that age who received the facts 
of the Gospel, received them on authority, that is, the tes- 
timony of witnesses. They were one step removed from the 
facts. All subsequent ages stand in a different relation; 
they receive them on written, not on oral authority, and they 
are one step further off. Mr. Gladstone well says: " For 
whatever Eevelation and Inspiration may be, we of this 
day do not claim to be in the condition of these immediate 
receivers. The mode of our own personal access to what 
they have conveyed, must be considered as subject to the 
general laws which govern the acquisition of knowledge 
and the direction of conduct." No man now living can 
have so direct and simple a knowledge of religion as those 
to whom the Divine communication was directly made. 
With them, authority was absolute, and lay between God 
and man; with us, it is only relative, and lies between God 
and us by the way of men, that is, the witnesses. For us, 
therefore, the problem of Divine authority is more com- 
plex; a new factor has been introduced. So far from re- 
ceiving the communication directly into our minds, or 
from the lips of an oral witness, we must verify manu- 
scripts and identify books. Upon the whole, the meth- 
od of authenticating the Gospel may not be more difficult 
now than then, but it is certainly different. With us, an 
examination of Christianity is, primarily, an inquiry into 
the claims of the New Testament to historical authenticity. 
There are, then, two elements of authority in a man's 
reception of the Gospel: first, the authority of God, the 
Author of the Gospel; and, second, the authority of the 
witnesses upon whose testimony the facts, such as the orig- 
inal verity of the miracles and the genuineness and authen- 
ticity of the books, rest. The authority of the witness is 
just as necessary as the authority of God. So much is in* 

M 



194 ECCLESIASTICAL TRADITION. 

disputable. But there is, in a great number of cases, a 
third element of authority, that, practically, is equally 
important. The New Testament says : " Prove all things; 
hold fast that which is good."* "Be ready always to 
give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of 
the hope that is in you, with meekness and fear." This 
is the ideal of Christian training. But to suppose that all 
Christians attain to this lofty height — to suppose that 
they ever have, since the Gospel passed beyond the little 
circle formed by the first disciples,, would be to commit 
a great mistake. How faint the outline of Christian 
evidence that millions of Christians would draw ! How 
little do they know directly of the genuineness of books, 
of the sufficiency of evidence, or of the rules of criti- 
cism ! Plainly, they cannot give an historical answer to 
the man who demands a reason for their faith. Nor 
am I speaking here simply of those Christians who are 
ignorant and superstitious, such as the mass of the Greek 
and Latin Churches, who take their religion on the 
authority of the priest ; I refer especially to that large 
class of so-called intelligent men and women who, owing 
to want of ability, opportunity, or inclination, have either 
no knowledge or small knowledge of Christian evidences. 
On what basis does the faith of these people rest ? In 
so far as it is historical, it plainly rests on authority 
— the authority of men. Sometimes, too, it rests on the 
authority of a small number of men. It is not too much 
to say, that there are cases where the historical elements, 
as respects books and criticism, are taken on the authority 
of the evangelist. Often the Bible is barely opened. 
The foundations of the Church are now sometimes laid in 
men's hearts upon the authority of preaching. But much 
more frequently, of course, it is the case that the faith of 

*I. Thes., v., 21. 



SUMMAEY AND CONCLUSION". 195 

these people rests upon the general agreement of scholars 
as to certain facts, or upon the consensus of the Christian 
world. Dr. Hinds was not far from the truth when he 
observed, that all men, except two or three in a million, 
believe in the existence and in the genuineness of manu- 
scripts of ancient books, such as the Scriptures, because 
they rely on the concurrent and uncontradicted testimony 
of all who have made, or who may make, the examination. 
It is quite true, too, that the popular knowledge of many 
other subjects rests on a similar basis, as Dr.Whately says. 
Hence, we see that two elements of authority must 
enter into Christian faith, and that a third may enter. 
Now the question arises, "What is a faith worth that 
rests on the conclusions of a few scholars, or the Chris- 
tian consensus, and is, therefore, traditionary ?" This 
is a question that should be carefully scrutinized ; all 
the more carefully because it is the fashion to decry tra- 
dition, to contemn authority, to cover with insult tra- 
ditionary systems, to sneer at "blind faith," as well as 
to exalt positive knowledge and to eulogize inquiry. An 
intelligent skepticism is said to be far better than sub- 
mission to authority. 

" There is more faith in honest doubt, 
Than in half the creeds." 

Far be it from me to undervalue positive knowledge, or 
to belittle personal investigation. Authority, at best, is 
but a crutch or carriage, as Mr. Gladstone says ; while in- 
quiry, in three centuries, has changed the face of the intel- 
lectual world. But whether active skepticism is better 
than unreasoning faith, depends upon what is the subject 
matter. "Apart from practice" it has been said, "a 
waking error is better than a sleeping truth." With the 
qualification, we may accept the remark. Apart from prac- 
tice it may be ; but with practice, a truth, even when 
asleep, cannot be compared to an error of any kind, 



196 ECCLESIASTICAL TRADITION. 

least of all a waking error. The sleepier a truth the less 
its value, and the more wakeful an error the more dan- 
gerous. A blind faith can never be compared with an in- 
telligent faith ; and whenever doctrine is causally con- 
nected with morals, character, or practical life, the man 
had far better receive it on authority than not to receive it 
at all. Says Malebranche : " If I held truth captive in 
my hand, I should open my hand and let it fly, in order 
that I might again pursue and capture it." Says Lessing : 
"Did the Almighty, holding in His right hand Truth, and 
in His left Search after Truth, deign to tender me the one 
I might prefer, — in all humility, but without hesitation, I 
should request, Search after Truth." Says Sir William 
Hamilton : " Science is a chase, and in the chase the pur- 
suit is always of greater value than the game." But these 
bold utterances can be true only in the field of pure specu- 
lation, where doctrine and life are wholly divorced. Their 
reception in the field of practice, where doctrine and con- 
duct are causally connected, would be most pernicious. I 
do not say that the reception of sound principles, in 
morals or religion, ignorantly, on authority, is equally val- 
uable with their intelligent reception; but that they had 
better be received thus than not at all. In so far as possi- 
ble, sound doctrine should be made to stand wholly on a 
basis of reason and of evidence; but it had better stand on 
a basis of authority and tradition than to tumble down. 

The conclusion just announced will hardly be disputed. 
But the question arises,. How far is it applicable to the 
Christian religion? First of all, let it be distinctly under- 
stood that I am not here considering the distinctive theol- 
ogies of the schools. I throw out the whole body of 
speculative divinity, as having little or no connection with 
life and godliness. Dogmas count for less, practically, than 
those who hold them think. Even the doctrine of tradi- 
tion, though both false and dangerous, is not necessarily 



SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION". 197 

related to conduct. Other things than denominational 
dogmas being equal, I see little, if any, difference in the 
virtues of the Protestant sects. But the Christianity of 
the New Testament — the common salvation — is undeni- 
ably and positively connected with the welfare of men. 
Wrapped up in that religion, are the destinies of man- 
kind. The Bible is the Book of Conduct. It is, therefore, 
fortunate that its great doctrines are supported by the 
common consent of so many nations and so many centu- 
ries. No doubt tradition tends to beget indolence and 
dogmatism; no doubt men much better understand what 
is fully discussed than what is handed along by authority; 
but we had better put up with some sleepiness and dogma- 
tism than to tear up our moral and religious foundations 
every generation or year, and begin again the structure of 
opinion and of faith. So holding, I can but think it im- 
portant to keep the consensus of the Christian world 
steadily in favor of Christianity. 

Perhaps I should add that the authority of which I here 
speak, is a purely moral authority. It is not political or 
judicial, or in any sense coercive. With the authority of 
force or punishment, I have no sympathy. It is no less 
revolting now to follow the infidel, as such, with denunci- 
ation and cursing, than it was in former times to follow 
him with the sword, the thumb-screw, or the fagot. 
Physical pains and penalties are coarser than mental ; 
but, considering the changed temper of the times, the 
former were no more out of place five hundred years 
ago than the latter are to-day. But moral authority 
has a place in the world of opinion, knowledge, and faith. 
and there has never been a time when men more needed to 
remember that such is the fact. And moral authority 
rests on inquiry, learning, wisdom, ability, and character, 
and not on the infallibility of a pope or the inspiration of 
a council. 



INDEX OF AUTHORITIES. 



Acts of the Apostles 23; 58; 167 

Alford, Dean, New Testament for English Readers 20; 24 (Note) 

Ambrose, Offic 49 

Articles of Anglican Church 100; 112; 113; 115 

Articles of Smalcald Ill 

Athanasius, Festali Epist. xxxix ; Against the Gentiles 49 

Augustine, Concerning the Doctrine of Christ 50 

Augustine, quoted by Hagenbach 51 

Bagehot, Physics and Politics 60; 61 

Barnabas, Epistle of 29 

Barrow, Dr. Isaac, Works 80 ; 82 

Basil, Homily xxix ; Concerning Faith 49 

Basil The Great, Concerning the Holy Spirit ... 51 

Bellarmin, Quoted by Bishop of Ely 134 

Blackstone, Commentaries 10; 11 ; 54 

Blunt, Dr. J. H, Household Theology 166 

Bossuet, Bishop, Exposition 15; 136; 137; 149; 150 

Browne, Dr. Harold, Bishop of Ely, Exposition of the Thirty-Nine 

Articles 20; 101; 102; 103; 148; 159; 165; 166 

Burnet, Bishop, Exposition of the Thirty-Nine Articles 158 

Calvin, John, Institutes 110; 111; 122 

Calvin, John, Commentary on the Acts 123 

Canons of Dort 125 

Christian Quarterly, The Logic of Roman Catholicism 93 

Chrysostom, Homily ix. on Colossians 50 

Chrysostom , Homily iv. on II. Thessalonians 51 

Clement of Alexandria, Miscellany 31 

Colossians, Epistle to 20 

Confession of Basle, First 125 

Corinthians, First Epistle to 15; 160; 168 

Corinthians, Second Epistle to 15 



INDEX OF AUTHOKITIES. 199 

PAGE. 

Council of the Vatican 80 

Council of Trent 76; 85 

Creed of Pius iv 77; 85 

Cunningham, Principal W., Historical Theology 48 

Cyprian, quoted by Hagenbach 51 

Cyril of Jerusalem, Catechism 49 

DeLaveleye, Emile, Protestantism and Catholicism 181 

De Pressens6, Dr. E. , Jesus Christ : His Times, etc 15 ; 30 

Epiphanius, Heresies 51 

Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History 17; 18; 25; 55 

Form of Agreement 125 

Fowler, Thomas, Inductive Logic 180 

Form of Concord Ill; 124 

Galatians, Epistle to 20 

Gladstone, W. E., Gleanings of Past Years 

184; 185; 186; 187; 188; 189; 190; 193 

Gallic Confession 112 

Graeco-Russian Confession of Faith . . . 73 

Helvetic Confession, (1536) Ill 

Helvetic Confession, (1566) Ill ; 112 

Hippolytus, Heresy of Noetus 49 

Hebrews, Epistle to 15 

Hagenbach, Dr. K. R., History of Doctrines 

41; 51; 52; 58; 107; 108; 113; 123; 124; 125 

Hooker, Dr. Richard, Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity 99; 100 

Hodge, Dr. Charles, Systematic Theology 84; 178 

Ignatius, To the Romans 28 

Ignatius, To the Philadelphians 29 

Irenseus, Against Heresies 18; 34; 35; 36; 37; 38; 39; 40; 42; 48 

James, Epistle of 15 

Jerome, Adv. Helvidium 50 

John, Gospel of 13; 15; 18; 22; 23; 142; 157; 192 

John, First Epistle of 192 

Judgment of the Oriental Church 72 

Justin, Philosopher and Martyr, First Apology 30 

Kernan, Doctrinal Catechism 135 ; 149 

Lewis, Sir G. C, Authority in Matters of Opinion 

184; 185; 186; 187; 188; 190 

Lightfoot, Dr. J. B., St. Paul's Epistle to the Philippians 120; 121 

Luke, Gospel of 15; 17; 142; 143 

Luther, Dr. Martin, Letters, Theses, etc 108; 109; 110; 115; 116; 124 

Maine, Sir. H. S. , Ancient Law 62 (Note) 

Mark, Gospel of 14; 20; 141; 157 

Matthew, Gospel of 14; 20; 141 ; 142; 157 



200 INDEX OP AUTHORITIES. 

PAGE. 

McGlynn, Dr. Edward, The Bugbear of Vaticanism 82 

Methodist, The 89 

Milman, Dean, History of Christianity 118; 1 19; 120 

Moehler, Dr. J. A. , Symbolism 77 

Montague, Bishop, Quoted in Note to Bossuet's Exposition 135 

Morris, Dr. E. D. , Speech at Cleveland, 1875 127 

Muenscher, Dr. Joseph, Manual of Biblical Interpretation. . 169 ; 171; 172 

Muller, Prof. Max, Chips from a German Workshop 139 (Note) 

Neander, Dr. A., History of the Church 144; 145 

Newman, Dr. J. H., Apologia Pro Vita Sua 6; 87; 104; 105 

Origin, Homily v. in Levit 49 

Orthodox Confession 72 

Oxenham, H. M., Preface, etc 155 

Palmer, Treatise of the Church 33; 88 (Note); 103 

Peter, First Epistle of 192 

Polycarp, To the Philippians 29 

Robinson, John 63 'Note) 

Romans, Epistle to 15 ; 21 

Schaff, Dr. P., History of the Church 58 

Schaff, Dr. P., In the Independent 90 (Note) 

Schenkel, in Real Encyclopaedia 43 

Synod of Jerusalem, Shield of the Orthodox Faith 72 

Taylor, Bishop Jeremy. 20 

Tertullian, Against Marcion 31 ; 32 

Tertullian, Prescription Against Heretics , .32; 34; 51 

Tertullian, Concerning the Soldier's Crown 33 

Tertullian, Against Hermogenes 33; 49 

Theodoret, Dialogue I 50 

Thessalonians, First Epistle to 19; 194 

Thessalonians, Second Epistle to 19 

Timothy, First Epistle to 14 

Timothy, Second Epistle to 14; 142 

Vincent of Lerens, Commonitor 50 

Webster, Dictionary 11 

Westcott, Canon, Introduction to the Study of the Gospels 140 

Westminster Confession 112 

Whately, Archbishop, Elements of Rhetoric 185 

Williams, Bishop : . . . 149 

Wiseman, Cardinal, Doctrines of the Church 

76; 77; 78; 81; 86, 87; 88 (Note); 89; 150; 151; 152; 153; 154; 155; 156 
Zwingle, Quoted by Hagenbach 110 






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